Create a locket using recycled materials
By Cheri Ford [Cheri is a Kindergarten teacher from Talladega, AL]
What You Need:
- 2 (two) metal bottle caps per child (the kind that come on a glass beverage bottle)
- 1 (one) 6 to 8 inch piece of 1/2 inch wide ribbon (I like chiffon or something like that) per child
- 1 (one) tiny paper circle (to fit inside 1 cap) per child
- red stamp pad
- white flat spray paint
- clear spray paint
- tiny photo of child (the Polaroid i-zone Pocket Camera makes perfect little pictures)
- thin ribbon (pink or red) about 1/16 inch wide –about a yard for each child
- beads with large holes (I like the sparkly faceted kind in clear, pink, red, purple–it’s also pretty to mix in different style beads of the same colors)
What You Do:
Collect bottle caps. Place them all on a flat, clean surface, close together. Spray paint them white.(This is a step for the teacher).
Have each child make a heart on one bottle cap by using the red stamp pad and printing a finger print two times to make the heart shape. Spray these with clear spray to protect the fingerprints. (This is a step for the teacher).
Fold the 1/2″ wide ribbon in half and tie in a knot. Using a glue gun, glue the ends of the ribbon inside the two bottle caps, one end on each leaving the knot right at the top of the caps so that they fit together like a clam shell and the loop of the ribbon is above the knot. (This is a step for the teacher). This loop will be used to string the locket onto the narrow ribbon.
Cut photos to fit the inside of the bottle cap the same as the circle of paper you will be using to let the children write a message on. On the bottom half of the “locket” glue the picture. On the top half of the “locket” glue the message. Mine usually write something easy like “I love you” since most 5 years olds write in large print. Don’t forget to remind your younger students to write tiny.
Have students string completed locket onto long narrow ribbon, ( I cut mine about a yard long – they can always be shortened). Then have them string beads on either side of locket. I encourage mine to create a pattern of their choice. I let my students string as many beads as they like. Some do a few, some like to fill them up!
A note to teachers of older students: your students may prefer to use the little seed beads (love beads) to string their locket on. In this case give them fishing line to string them on and encourage them to fill them up. These are really pretty when you choose pretty valentine colors.
