How to Make a Kids Necklace - Beading - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. Now I am going to show you how to make a basic necklace for kids. This is a tray and it actually has basic measurements on here so you can lay out your design on the tray and it not roll around;the beads will stay in place. So you can play around with it. So, I ended up picking beads, my favorite beads putting them in these cubbies, but I actually created my design on here. So the next thing is, this is a great wire that I like to use. It is by Soft Flex. It is a nylon coated stainless steel wire and it is really flexible. I have done lots of tests before with other lower price brands like you would get at Michael's or a big chain store, but this is actually really good. I would go to a beading supply store that specializes in jewelry for this. It lasts longer and what I do mainly for kids is I cut off - I give myself two inches extra than the length of the necklace. A basic girl's necklace is 16 inches and I would cut a wire 20 inches, have two inches per side to play with and make the closure. And then I put a little tape at the end because sometimes the girls will bead it up and then they fall off if there is no stop at the end. So what I do is put a little tape, start stringing from one set to the next in order and you just basically start stringing. The color balance and eye-hand coordination for little girls like four years old and up this is a really, really good activity for them to do. I can bead it up kind of quickly but this will take a little longer for someone whose trying to find the hole and it is a great activity for moms and their kids. This is an example of a girl's necklace, but we can also do this on a hemp cord for boys and they can just throw it over their head. Girls usually end up picking anything with shapes of butterflies, flowers, hearts and stars. They usually pick the pastel, they either go pastel or they go bright. The boys end up going a little more darker, some wood and primary colors. So I am stringing this up, and it does not have to be the same way, you can always change it up, as you laid it out. So some people make the mistake that once they have strung it up that they cannot change their design but you can always do it. Like right now I am looking at this teddy bear charm and I want to add it to my design. So I have some different pendants here and you can put the pendant directly in the middle at the zero, but you can also put it off to the side or add more than one pendant. So I am putting it in the middle because I want it in the middle of the word, the cupcake word. So we are half way through this necklace. Some mistakes that I have seen, or just working with moms and their kids is that the mothers try to control what their kids are doing. But really kids are kind of stubborn and they want to do what they want to do, and it should be a fun activity. So just relax and just enjoy the time you have with your kids, making a creation together. I am almost done and this is what it looks like so far. We have the teddy bear in the middle that I added at the last minute and the word cupcake spelled in the middle. And then I am at the end right now so I am just putting on my last few beads. And the trick that I have learned at the end is to make sure you have a smaller bead at the end so it does not get in the way of the closure, that also has a smaller hole. Because I will show you when we do the crimping when there is a big hole it kind of makes it hard to attach the closure. I like to use closures on the ends of my necklaces. I think that they give it a finishing touch. It makes it a little more dressy, a little more special and it is something that your daughter made this, or mom can also make it and it can be handed down from generation to generation. It makes it a special little thing that someone made for you. But you could also just use a basic elastic like this bracelet that we have here. This - string it up, tie it in a knot, put it over your head. That is also a very easy solution if you want it to be a simple chore - a simple task that you would do. This one takes a little more coordination. This is a little tube of crimpers that I use. And basically it fastens the closure on to the wire, and I took one out already and it is a really, really tiny little tube, a little service tube. Now you can use any base metal that you want, plated silver or antique gold, whatever, but you can also use sterling silver which is also a nice way of doing your jewelry line. So basically you put the crimp on there. You put the one side of the closure onto the wire, and your going to fold over the wire into the crimp, so it is attached like that. The next step is we need to close the crimp. So I have a little crimping tool. You can use a flat nose plier and just smash it down or you can get this tool and it is called a crimper and it has little curves in it and it actually bends the crimper in half like a taco or sub sandwich, whatever you want to call it. And then that is one step there, and then the next step is folding it in half again. So this makes it really sturdy so the wire does not slip. Like that. The next step is I do not want to trim this end, which some people do, but I like to keep it extra so I can cover it and have a little more sturdiness. So I put beads over it and just cover up the wire and then I am going to just to slide on the beads to the other side there and I have a lot of wire to play with. Some people end up having only an inch left at the end and that makes it really hard to do the other side. I take the tape off. And the other side is pretty much done the same. I have a crimp and I put the crimp over the wire like that, and then I put the other side of the closure on. So this part you stick the wire back into the crimp into the beads. I like to put them in through at least 3 to 5 beads just for the extra security again. And you just kind of pull the wire to make it tight. So see how there is no loose beads around. I am going to crimp the bead again, the crimper again, on the other side, crimping it like a taco and then crimping it again in half. The last step is trimming off the extra wire. And there is a little snipper here that you can get, again, at your local craft or bead supply store just get as close as you can, trim it, and then your necklace is done. And you can put it on. So that is how you finish a fun beaded necklace.
