Reading Confetti: Pony Bead American Flag

This American flag is easy to make with kids and it's a fun way to use beads. It also makes a cute patriotic refrigerator magnet in honor of July 4th.

My daughter loves beads. We have a huge bucket of them that I got from a rummage sale and she'll spend hours making necklaces for me.

And then sometimes this happens and they don't seem like such a good bargain after all.

Since she loves beads, and I love American flag crafts, we combined the two and made an American flag magnet from pony beads.

We used:
1 large craft stick
Fishing line
Red and white pony beads
Blue star beads
Tape

We made 9 strings of beads (tying the first bead to the fishing line to hold the others on). Five were alternating red and white with 13 beads total and four were 7 pony beads with 3 blue star beads on top.

I taped each string to the back of the craft stick and then used a little hot glue to make sure they were secure. At first I hung it from a ribbon but then we decided it needed to go on our fridge, so we glued some magnets to the back.

What do your kids make with beads? I need some ideas to use these things up so I don't have to keep picking them off the floor.

P.S. Make sure you don't do this craft with children who would put the beads in their mouths.

10 comments:

UnknownJuly 1, 2013 at 11:48 PM
I am loving all of your flag crafts! We just made one using pony beads the other day too. :)
UnknownJuly 2, 2013 at 11:15 AM
Beautiful craft. Going to pin this! And I must say I just love those beads on the floor~ seems like something that would happen here too!
HeidiSongsJuly 2, 2013 at 6:00 PM
Hi!
Love all of your wonderful ideas, crafty and otherwise!
I know that this just a simple little idea, and not literacy related, but my kindergartners just loved making simple patterned necklaces with our leftover pony beads! At Christmas time, we tied a jingle bell at the bottom of the piece of yarn, and then made patterns all the way up both sides of the bell. It worked out GREAT- until we discovered that, A: the yarn I bought at a discount store was WAY too cheap and the necklaces started breaking at random times during lessons throughout the day, landing on the floor with a crash and many tears of dispair! and B: the jingling of 28 little bells nearly drove me to get a margarita at lunch time, which is clearly forbidden! :)
Heidi Butkus
http://heidisongs.blogspot.com
HeidiSongsJuly 2, 2013 at 6:07 PM
By the way, I also had kids that seemed to have dumped the beads out onto the floor on purpose resort them by color as a logical consequence while in "time out." This backfired; they LOVED sorting the beads! It was quite popular... or maybe it was just a "Tom Sawyer" type of thing, where the naughty kid gets everyone else to do his whitewashing by tricking them into thinking it is a special privilege that only HE gets to do!
Heidi
Jackie HigginsJuly 2, 2013 at 8:40 PM
I love your bead craft flag!! So cute! My boys take spurts in being interested in beads. If I can't get them to do it, I think I might just try it myself. It looks relaxing- minus the spills.
UnknownJuly 3, 2013 at 11:23 AM
Such a cute craft!
UnknownJuly 9, 2013 at 5:15 AM
This is such a cute craft! I am pinning it on my 4th of July board =)

Thanks for linking up to TGIF! Have a great week,
Beth
ShannonNovember 26, 2015 at 2:32 PM
I was researching for a flag themed kids party and just love this simple and fun looking craft idea! What age range do you think this would appeal to most? I'm getting some little custom made flags to have them take home with the crafts I choose for the special day. https://www.the-flag-makers.com/

Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment!