A Little Macaroni Charm

I’ve been making a lot of macaroni jewelry these days. My kid loves necklaces and pasta seems to be a great way to adorn her in something that is not an expensive heirloom and or a cheap-o special from the dollar store that will inevitably get destroyed at daycare… and bonus… we can also make dinner with the left overs materials.

But the plain old pasta necklaces, though classic, do get a little tired after awhile. So this week I thought I would surprise her with some painted pasta “beads” and jazz up our jewelry game a wee bit.

And of course, it wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t add a little crafty character to the final piece.

I’m calling this craft the "Macaroni Charm"

Materials
1. Tubular pasta - Rigatoni
2. Acrylic paint
3. String
4. Paint brush

Instructions
I love how with just a simple coat of paint you can turn an everyday object, like pasta into a whole new piece de resistance! This is a super simple craft.

Essentially it is about choosing a color palette, creating a pattern and painting pasta! I wanted to make a minimal necklace with only a few pieces. I chose the color green thanks to a weekly Makeful challenge that had its sights set on this shade, and then I decided on a face design, which I practiced prior to starting on some stray pasta shells.

Once I had my design and colors set, it was very straightforward:
-paint macaroni
-let dry
-paint face on macaroni
-let dry
-string macaroni onto string

Here I chose to create a braided necklace out of simple cotton strands. I used six strands of cotton to give it a bit more of a robust structure and visual presence.

The result was an adorable new piece of loveliness for my daughter to sport! Oh and you can also fashion a pretty cute bracelet.

A final note, there is a lot of room for creativity here. You could paint patterns, use a ton of different colors and if you choose to create faces, they can be happy, sad, silly, serious… well whatever you want! Sky is the limit!

Have fun!