ABC Necklace and Bracelet for Children

A necklace and bracelet that are both fashionable and educational. My two year old daughter loves necklaces and bracelets, and she loves letters. I thought it would be a good idea to combine the two. I made these a few weeks ago, and have tried to wear them ever day. When my daughter sees them, she smiles and says, "ABC necklace!"

You will be able to find these materials at a good craft store.  They may be hard to find, so you may want to ask for help.  Otherwise you may wander around finding all kinds of goodies to make other Instructables out of.

Materials:
  1.  Elastic thread also called millinery elastic (I used 4mm and 6mm diameter)
  2.  Alphabet beads (I used colored hearts/beads and gold cubes) (colored cubes also shown, but not used, yet)
  3.  Barrel clasps  (You could make it without these, but they are a good finishing touch)

Tools:
  1.  Scisors
  2.  Lighter or match to seal the cut ends of elastic
  3.  Your fingers and thumbs

Open the packets of beads and put them in order.  I had to go back to the store and buy two more packets because of missing letters.  I made a list of the letters I needed and made sure they were in the new packets.  Oh well, you can never have too many letters,  but what am I going to do with three Q's, three X's, and four Z's?

You will want to layout your beads in the order that you want them on your necklace/bracelet.  This will give you an idea of what they will look like and how long they will be.  I determined the length of my bracelet to be about eight inches and the length of the necklace to be seventeen inches.  The gold beads for the bracelet worked out to be the right size.  The heart shaped beads for the necklace needed more beads, so I put the colored spherical beads, that came in their package, in between each heart shaped bead.

Cut your elastic a little longer than needed.  You can cut off the extra later.  After you cut the elastic, use a lighter or match to melt the ends.  This will seal the ends and keep them from coming unraveled.  It will also make a nice clean end that looks nice and threads thru the beads easily.  Plus it is fun to use fire as a tool!  If you are making this instructable with a friend, I suggest using a candle (more romantic than a lighter).

Since you already have your beads laid out, all you have to do is thread them onto the elastic one at a time.

After you have threaded on all the beads, and are happy with them, finish off by adding the barrel clasps or just tie the ends together.  On my necklace I wanted barrel clasps, so I tied them on with a figure of eight knot with a stopper knot.  I didn't want any clasps on the bracelet, so I just tied the ends together with a square knot.

Enjoy your necklace and bracelet.  My daughter is only two.  Most of the beads were recommended for children over three, so I only let her wear them while I supervise her.  I mostly wear them so she can play with them while I am holding her or while she is sitting with me.  She really likes pointing out the letters, and I think it is helping her learn the letters she doesn't know yet.  When she gets older I may make some word necklaces.  She likes animals as well so I may even make my own animal beads like another instructable by supersoftdrink https://www.instructables.com/id/Preschooler-Animal-Bracelet/

Thanks for reading,

Charles