Friendship Necklace
Christine McGavern
145th Girl Guides
Calgary, AB
Canada
junkmail3@home.com
These necklaces are a great way to use up bits of fabric craft materials left from other projects!
We made these for our 'bring-a-friend' night. Girls made them at the beginning of the evening, and had to exchange
them with three other people over the course of the night. Everyone ends up with a necklace and a neat reminder/welcome
to Guiding.
Materials: (for one necklace)
- a rectangle of felt, approx. 3" long by 1.5" wide (I used royal blue)
- a length of embroidery floss 'as-is' out of the skein (keep all strings together) - long enough to hang about mid-chest level
- a few very small seed beads, ribbon bits, yarn scraps, lace, etc. (lots of colors is perfect!)
- (OPTIONAL) something about 1/2" square to glue as a centerpiece (I went to a dollar store and got little puffy flower appliques; 50¢ for 12)
- length of ribbon about the span of your index finger to your pinky (I used white, any color is fine - needs to be thin enough to fit through a pony bead easily)
- 4 pony beads (I chose 1 royal blue - for Guides; 1 silver and 1 gold - symbolizing new friends and old; and one unique color so the girl can identify it as the one she made)
- white glue - must be kind that dries clear
Directions:
- Tie embroidery floss ends together in simple double knot.
- Spread a thin layer of white glue on roughly half of one side of the felt - this will be the side that holds decorations.
- Place your centerpiece wherever you like in the glue
- Go wild with the seed beads, ribbon scraps, etc... ! (The girls don't keep the one they made, so encourage them to be generous decorators!)
- Lay flat and let dry a bit.
- Meanwhile, take the ribbon length and place one of the pony beads at the end. Tie a knot around the bead or in some other fashion so it doesn't come off.
Thread the other 3 pony beads onto the ribbon.
- Play a game and let the glue dry for 10 minutes.
- Take the felt piece and fold it in half over the 'bottom' of the embroidery floss loop. Glue the ribbon length
at the bottom of the felt piece, and the two ends of the felt piece shut. (Attaching it around the floss loop.)
- Let it dry again for a bit. Girls may have to hold it shut for a minute while the glue gets tacky. For the impatient, try staples.
- Girls can either wear their necklaces throughout the evening, or just during a "friendship game/song" at the end of the meeting.
This craft can be speeded up by pre-cutting felt, embroidery floss, and ribbon lengths, and pre-tying the loops of floss.
Depending on how well your girls 'share', it may be faster to give each girl a small pile of 'decorations' rather then have them
pick through a selection on their own - someone is bound to be left out of the sequins, etc. (grin)
The girls liked making 'shiny objects' - I provided sequins, irridescent beads ... and most of their non-Guiding friends hadn't made
a craft so jazzy before!
Either you or the girls can decide how they want to exchange necklaces. Try to have them exchange with someone that they didn't know before the meeting
started... Lots of ways that this craft can be adapted. Have fun!
Contributed on - 2 Feb 1999
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