Baby Friendly Necklaces

The Roly Poly is teething like CRAZY, and he is incredibly fascinated by my necklaces recently. 

The first necklace I made was a wood bead teething necklace (it's the shorter of the two in the photo). I used this wonderful tutorial from See Kate Sew.

Definitely check out her blog and ETSY shop. Plus look for her this week at Crafting with the Stars.

The second, longer, necklace is of my own design. I thought that while the Roly Poly was munching away on one necklace, he'd be fiddling with the other. Thus, a nice squishy but sorta crunchy sounding necklace came to mind, and the plastic bag necklace was born. Yes, this necklace has a plastic grocery bag inside in order to give it some poof and a little bit of sound. Babies like this sort of thing. 

Okay, so how do you make such a necklace?

Follow the simple directions below.

1. Cut and sew a 3 1/2 inch by 40 inch piece of fabric into a tube. Use the safety pin trick to turn right side out.

You should have this:

2. Tear a grocery bag in half. You will need both halves

 3. By photo

1. Twist one half of the bag completely.

2. Begin to push the twisted bag into the opening of the tube. The safety pin may come in handy here.

3. When you are at the end of the first half, tie the second half of the bag to the end (I found the handle to be helpful for this). Now twist the second half and push through.

4. If you have trouble toward the end of your completed bags, use something to aide you in pushing. I used this here lollipop stick, but I wasn't using the safety pin.

 4. Tie the ends. I actually tied one end before I began, but if you are using the safety pin trick, which I recommend, then you cannot do this.

5. Tie several knots evenly throughout the body of your necklace. This adds some dimension and helps with flexibility.

***Note: Do to the nature of the filling for this necklace it may be a little stiff***

6. Like in the wooden bead necklace tutorial, it is now time to add ribbon to the openings. Cut your ribbon in two 8 inch lengths. I angled the cuts that will remain outside. Then fold the side that will go in the tube opening in three like in the photo below.

7. Place it inside the tube. Pinning is always helpful. And stitch across, making sure to back stitch at the beginning and end.

This should be something like your result.

TADA!!!! You have a finished product. Fancy looking, no?

Now, strut your stuff with these two pieces and let your little guy or gal enjoy chewing and squishing your glamorous jewelry. They look great paired together or worn alone.