Fall Nature Jewelry

Quick easy ways to make little kid jewelry while enjoying a great Autumn walk in the woods or park.

1. Fall Nature Bracelets: Use wide tape and wrap it loosely around the child's wrist with the sticky side out. As the child collects things like leaves, bark, etc. they stick it to the tape to make a bracelet.

2. Fall Nature Necklace: Take a long piece of yarn or string with you on a nature walk. As you go along collecting Autumn objects, tie them onto the string. When you're done, tie the two ends together to create a necklace.

NOTE: You may want to avoid larger sticks or other sharp objects that could poke the child in the eye as they are wearing their necklace.

3. Braided Grasses: Collect long strands of dried grasses, straw, thin twigs, etc. and braid them into a necklace or bracelet.

To do the braiding, divide the strands into three groups and put them side by side. Put a rubber band around the top of the three to hold them together. Take the right section of grass over the middle section, now take the left section over the middle one. Alternate the right and left sections until you reach the end of the grass.

You can add more grasses to each section as you need them to make the necklace or bracelet as long as you want. When you finish the braid, put a rubber band on the end to hold it and then tie the two end of the traid together to make your jewelry. (You may or may not be able to take the rubber bands off when you're done tying it off.)

4. Belts, Pins, Etc.: You can create any kind of jewelry using the tape technique in number one above. The real fun for the kids is in sticking stuff to the tape and wearing it around.

In order to get the most out of the exercises above, be sure to talk about the items that you collect:

Why are the leaves dried out?

What color is this or what color did it used to be?

Where did this come from?

You get the idea... better yet, encourage the child (or children) to ask you questions. This activity can really be a lot of fun if everyone is engaged.

One thing... if you decide to do the tape jewelry, bring the roll along on your walk. They can go through it pretty fast!

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