I am not one for taking the wrapping paper slowly and carefully off of my gifts.  Neither are my children.  So Christmas morning we wind up with lots of ripped and wrinkled wrapping paper.  Seems a shame and waste to throw it all away, so we have been thinking of ways to reuse wrapping paper.  These wrapping paper beads are perfect for us!

Since these wrapping paper beads are small, you only need tiny pieces of wrapping paper – perfect for our torn to shreds Christmas paper left overs!   They are simple, full of learning, and lots of fun too.

Materials for this wrapping paper craft:

scraps of wrapping paper

toothpicks

glue

paper cup/playdough/anything to stick toothpicks into

To make these wrapping paper beads:

First we cut long thin triangles out of many different scraps of wrapping paper.  Our triangles were about 1 inch wide and 3 inches tall.

Next, we rolled each wrapping paper triangle around a toothpick, starting with the bottom of the triangle and finishing with the point

Then we added glue to the tip of the triangle and secured it to the bead

Finally, we coated the whole bead with a thin coat of glue and left them on their toothpick to dry (we poked them into the bottom of  a paper cup)

After they were dry – and it didn’t take very long, about an hour or so – we could thread the beads.  They dry very hard and are quite sturdy too.  We threaded them onto some embroidery thread without a needle, though this activity would be a nice introduction to using a darning needle for wee ones.

This activity is great for kids of all ages.  Even if children are too small to participate in the making of the beads, they can thread them.  The holes in the beads can easily be made bigger or smaller simply by wrapping the wrapping paper around different objects.  Using a pencil would make the hole much bigger and great for toddlers to thread onto a pipe cleaner.

Christmas morning is a busy time – but try to save even a little bit of your wrapping paper from the garbage.  It really is the little things that add up!  Pop some of the wrapping paper scraps into a bag and stick them in a closet … these wrapping paper beads would be a great activity for a quiet afternoon on winter break!

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