Mother's Day Gift: Paper Pendants {Second Installment of "But Can She Craft?"}

I teach in an inner city school.  I have wonderful students but there is no way they would have the means to go out and buy their moms a special Mother's Day gift.  I've built some special relationships with my kids' moms this year, and I wanted the kids to do something special for them; something that would make them feel great.

But what could I do without spending an arm and a leg?

I referred to my post "Ten Tutorials I WILL Conquer."  I was inspired by Jessica's paper pendant tutorial; I knew I could have my students make these for their moms as a custom piece of jewelry.

I'm not going to go through the tutorial step by step because Jessica does a great job teaching you how to make them.  However, I will tell you a few things I learned while doing this tutorial.




Waiting for the Envirotex to dry...

 First lesson learned:  make sure your initial coats of Mod Podge on top of your pendant are good.  If not, the Envirotex will seep through and cause the paper to look like it has grease stains.  With my afternoon class, I had them coat their pendant with two layers of Mod Podge.


Envirotex Lite is freakin' awesome!

 Another thing I learned is that jewelry glue will gush out if you squeeze it too hard.  When you squeeze it too hard, it will get on your fingers and your fingers will burn.  *Note: I did NOT let the students put on the jewelry glue, especially after what happened to me during my trial run.  I also didn't let them apply the Envirotex. 



Pendants with the bails applied.

A few notes about my pendants compared to Jessica's:  I couldn't find two inch washers, so I used 1.5 inch washers and a 1.5 inch circle punch.  I couldn't find the bails she used either, but these worked out just fine.  I learned that Envirotex is higher than a cat's back (a southern way to say expensive) but a little truly goes a long way with this project.  If you have a 40% off coupon at Michael's, it's not so bad.

When the kids finished their pendants, I thought they needed a little accompaniment gift to go with it.  With the left over craft paper, I had them make their moms personalized matching notebooks.  I then had them write their moms a letter on the first page wishing them a happy Mother's Day.

I think you can find this tutorial somewhere in Internet land,  but all I did was cut some white paper in fourths, staple about 15 pages together at the top, and the students glued a half sheet (cut vertically) of matching craft paper as a binding.  Then they glued their mama's first initial to the cover.

Here are some sets close up:

I couldn't buy chains for all the pendants, so I used twine in hopes that the kids could talk someone into taking
them to Walmart for a simple chain.

 There you have it; isn't that awesome?  Thanks again to Jessica for the great idea!

And Jessica, since my students and I conquered your tutorial; feel free to grab your button:

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