How-to: Kid-Made Recycled Cardboard Pendants

Kids love to make their own jewelry, and these pendants, crafted from upcycled cardboard, are especially fun to create and wear. The pendants cost no money, slip easily inside a letter to a pen pal, and, if the kid gets tired of wearing them, can be tossed right back into the recycling bin.

Here’s how to make them:

You will need:

• upcycled cardboard–cereal boxes and shipping boxes work well, although here we’re using old record album covers (we made record bowls with the albums inside)
• template and pencil–a jar lid or other circle, about 2″ diameter, is a good size for the template
• sturdy scissors
• hole punch–a narrow one works better at punching through thick cardboard than the standard-sized circle
• pens or markers to decorate–I HIGHLY recommend gel pens for this project, because they work on both rough and slick surfaces, and their colors really pop
• twine or embroidery thread

Next >>

1. Using your template, trace and cut out a few circles. Neither my six-year-old nor my eight-year-old had the hand strength to cut through the thick cardboard record album covers, so I did this step. I fussy cut interesting images from the front of the cardboard covers, knowing that the back sides would be blank canvasses for my girls’ art.

2. 

   Punch a hole in the top of the pendant, then let the kids loose to decorate them. One of my daughters drew her own picture on the blank side of the pendants, while my other daughter really enjoyed coloring over the images on the front of each pendant with the vivid colors of her gel pens.

3. Thread the pendant onto a piece of twine or embroidery floss long enough for the kid to pull the necklace on and off over her head.