Rubies and Emeralds

Yesterday we began making our own jewelry: paper beads! This idea came from an old Family Fun Magazine I had kept, but here is a link to the instructions online:

http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/recycled-paper-beads-1004049/

I used strips of magazine pages that were very colorful and rolled our beads around Crayola markers for a good width. Molly (4) had fun making these, but got distracted by sorting her gems partway through. I finished making a few extra rolls and they dried overnight. Unfortunately Molly hasn't felt like finishing them yet, but when she does we'll cut them into small beads and string them on some yarn.


For a special princess snack one day, we had "strawberry jewels". After washing off whole strawberries, I dipped them in colored sugar while they were still a little wet so the sugar would stick. You could also dip them in melted white chocolate first. The only colors I had available were red and green (guess which holiday??) so we had rubies and emeralds for our snack! We also saw some jewelry with those real gem stones on a shopping channel on TV. The strawberry ones were much more tasty, though!


Here is a link to a much fancier and probably even more delicious "Strawberry Sparkles Recipe". I originally saw this recipe in a Family Fun magazine, but didn't have it with me when I created my simpler version.

http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/strawberry-sparkles-686824/