Activity Day bracelets

S & I have been messing around with jewelry making ideas to do with the Activity Day girls (week day church activity for girls ages 8 to 11).   I made a chain & friendship bracelet.  We decided that was pretty cool, but obviously going to be too tricky for our group.

We did some duct tape & washi tape bangles that were fun, but.

We settled on bracelets made from paper clips and colorful duct tapes.

They actually turned out pretty cute AND were fairly easy for all the girls.  I couldn't believe that some girls actually had never made a paperclip chain and had no idea how to undo one if they found clips chained together in a color order that they didn't want to use!?!?!?  I had NO idea that would be a skill I'd need to teach them. 

Anywho, here is a close up of the paper clip bracelet I made and a chain that I stuck duct tape triangles to; turned out kind of fun as well.

Pretty much all you do is make a paper clip chain long enough to go around your wrist.  Then you wrap fun patterned or colored tape around the paper clips.  

I bent some wire into 'S' shapes and we used those to connect the ends.  For the ones who wanted more than a single chain, I taught them how to use a jump ring to connect them all together first and then they connected the 'S' hook to that jump ring for their closure.  We also used a jump ring to connect 3 to 5 more tape covered paper clips to make sort of tassels or charms hanging from the 'S' hook.  (I have beads dangling from mine instead of more clips; super mature, huh.)

The taped paper clips were really fun to play around with; S was almost late for school 2 days in a row because she couldn't stop making them.  I ended up making myself this sparkly silver necklace (though the photo doesn't show the sparkly-ness).  There's a little tweeking I might still do to it, but, hey, not bad for jewelry supplies scrounged out of a desk drawer, right?!

I'm thinking next I might try making a really long necklace using double stick tape and candy wrappers instead of duct tape!  Fun, huh!?!?  It WILL be a such a hardship eating enough candy to get the right supplies for that one ;)   Or I thought the paper clip chain could make a cute handle for one of these recycled bags I make now and then.