Friendship Wands: Kids Bead Craft

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It’s always fun to find a craft that is easy, fun, inspires creative play and both boys and girls enjoy. My daughter loves to pretend that she’s a fairy or sorcerer. I thought it would be fun to make friendship wands with her so we tried this kids bead craft.

With a few simple supplies that you most likely have stashed in your craft drawer you can create your own wand for creative play. We used branches to create the base of our wand. You could easily use a dowel rod, unsharpened pencil, or even chop sticks which might provide a sturdier option for younger children. We wrapped the base with a variety of cording (leather, stretch metallic). Yarn or string would also work. We decorated mostly with beads and a few fancy embellishments from a scrapbook kit. Of course using a hot glue gun opens the door to endless options of what you can glue to a wand!

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Kids Bead Craft Supplies

Pony Beads Multi Color 9mm 1000 Pcs in BagSouarts Multicolor Acrylic Round ball Loose Beads 8mm Pack of 300pcsBingcute 300Pcs 8mm Screw Shiny Acrylic Round Ball Spacer Loose Beads for JewelryNatural Round Mixed Color Amazonite Gemstone Loose Beads for Jewelry Making Handmade DIYYUEAON wholesale 400pcs 8mm Glass Beads for jewelry making AB COLOR crystal SpacerBeads Direct USA’s Glass Pearls Mix 200pcs 6mm – Ocean Mix

Clearly this craft is intended for adult help and supervision with the use of the hot glue gun. I glued the base of the cording to the branch and applied a single line of glue along the branch for an inch or two and continued wrapping the cord until we had a nice little grip on the end of our wand.
Although most of our beads were applied with glue to the surface of the branch, we did find some beads with a large enough hole to thread over the branch. Look for those stand-out beads that make a fun top to your wand.My oldest daughter (age 8) enjoyed designing the wands. She would lay beads out as she wanted and I’d glue them into place for her.It’s hard to do any craft in our house without little sister wanting to join in so I did my best to modify a fun option for her that didn’t require glue. We found a thin branch and she spent a LONG time just threading the large pony beads onto it. We found out the hard way that even if we glue the top bead, if the branch breaks in the center all the beads come tumbling off. Yes, there were tears.

I later took each bead off and glued them onto the branch one by one for her. Of course keep in mind alternative options for the safety of your little one depending on the age. Beads and pipe cleaners are also a fun option and something that you can secure the end on.

We made our wands extra-special by finding fancy cases for them. These are old jewelry cases I had stashed away. They also keep our wands safe from little sister.

While we were building our wands my daughter had the fun idea to call them Friendship Wands and insisted that we make them for all of our close friends (especially our friends who are big Harry Potter fans).

Of course the most fun is playing with the wands when they’re complete!

Who would you make YOUR friendship wand for?