Vacation Creations: Make a Royal Neckpiece!
Whether you are a prince or a princess, get ready for Cinderella’s ball by making your own neckwear – a colorful pasta necklace! Kings and princes wear medallion necklaces while princesses wear medallions or gems.
This is a two-step craft, and while it may look like magic when your pasta turns into colorful beads, we assure you that no fairy godmother is needed for this magical transformation. Plus you will be using science and math skills as well as art!
Step 1: Make the Pasta Beads
What you need:
• Penne or ziti pasta – 1 box, uncooked
• Rubbing alcohol – 1 teaspoon
• Food coloring – 1 box assorted colors
• Ziploc freezer bags – 1 for each color bead you make
What you do:
• Put a cup of the uncooked pasta in a Ziploc bag.
• Pour in one teaspoon of rubbing alcohol.
• Drop in from ten to twenty drops of food coloring (the box it comes in should have instructions for mixing different colors).
• Zip up your bag and shake, shake, shake!
• Repeat with different colors.
• Let the pasta sit in the bag for about fifteen minutes, shaking occasionally, to intensify the color.
• Open the bags and pour pasta onto a cookie sheet protected with foil or parchment paper.
• Let the pasta dry for several hours or overnight.
Step 2: Make the Necklace
What you need:
• Yarn
• Packing tape or a yarn needle
What you do:
• Cut a piece of yarn about 48 inches long (or long enough to fit over your head).
• Thread the yarn through the yarn needle – or, if you don’t have a yarn needle, cut a 2-inch piece of packing tape (or similar tape) and place one end of the yarn over the sticky side. Wrap the tape over the yarn so that it looks like the end of a shoelace. This will make it easier to string the beads.
• Thread the yarn through one pasta bead and loop it up to tie a knot just above the bead to keep the beads from falling off.
• Thread more pasta beads along the yarn. Repeat the colors to form a pattern, e.g., red red blue yellow, red red blue yellow, etc.
• To finish, pass the yarn through that first bead (with the looped end around it) and tie the ends together.
