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Make junk art necklaces with recycled cardboard – our printable – and nature!

We had such a great time as a family making these colourful, unicorn eco necklaces from recycled cardboard – and nature!

This craft activity just ticks so many boxes – its easy, sustainable, educational and above all fun!

Want to make a Recycled unicorn Necklace and Wand play set too? Just visit our Eco Unicorn Wand blog post..

Make a Eco Unicorn Wand HERE to go with your cardboard necklace!

Working with kids cecycled cardboard art..

What you need to make Cardboard art necklaces:

• Cardboard box / corrugated cardboard
• Printable PDF (both pages) printed on card / recycled card
• wooden beads
• Cord
• paint & pva glue
• Single hole punch – optional but really useful!
• pompoms, sequins & flowers (optional)

How to make kids recycled Cardboard Art necklaces

1. Create some cardboard art – Be bold! abstract patterns work really well for this project!

2. Download and print our Unicorn Jewellery Printable:

3. Stick the A4 printables to the back of your artwork, and leave to dry.

4. Cut out the shapes!

5. Punch the shapes – to create threadable Cardboard art shapes

A single hole punch is really useful for this job. However – if you don’t have one of those a normal hole punch will do.

6. Decorate your Cardboard art shapes!

If you would like a different colour scheme just colour in the whole printable before sticking it to the card!

Add pompoms, sequins, tassels, beads – or whatever you can think of – only your imagination sets the limits! You can also use string to hang pompoms from your shapes (like I did with the unicorn shape in the picture)

For more simple ‘cardboard art beads’ – simply cut geometric shapes from your cardboard Art – without using the printable – and decorate!

Some of our collection of kids recycled cardboard art shapes – ready for making into beautiful necklaces!

Adding nature to kids recycled cardboard art necklaces..

Adding nature to your cardboard art necklaces is a really great way to explore textures and colours in nature with kids – and it’s educational too!

We had a lot of fun – firstly in collecting the flowers and foliage in our garden – secondly in naming each plant – and thirdly in deciding how to incorporate our flowers in the cardboard art necklaces!

Adding nature is also a brilliant way of giving your cardboard jewellery an interesting look – and fragrance!

How to add nature to your shapes..

7. Thread your shapes onto cord or ribbon- to create beautiful colourful necklaces!

Homemade Cardboard art unicorn junk necklaces – choose from a whole rainbow of colours – and wear them with different flowers every day!

On reflection I am so happy we took the time – a whole weekend! – to really have fun with this creative multi medium project! Working together creatively as a family was a really great experience for us all – and we ended up with a beautiful kit of recycled cardboard art threadable shapes – ready to make an epic Junk Necklace anytime!

I hope you have fun with this project too – and that you enjoy our unicorn card jewellery craft printable! Please do mention us on social media if you make this project – we would love to see it! #theawesomechildhoodproject

Make a full Unicorn Necklace and Wand play set!

Want to make a Recycled unicorn Necklace and Wand play set? Just visit our Eco Unicorn Wand blog post..

Make a Eco Unicorn Wand HERE to go with your cardboard necklace!