Thursday, July 23, 2015

Make Colorful Watercolor Peg Doll and Beaded Necklaces

I recently purchased a box of Liquid Watercolors (affiliate link) to try out.  I'd seen so many beautiful projects by other fellow Rockin' Art Moms  that we just had to try them out too.

And guess what?  These paints totally lived up to the hype.

Here's why liquid watercolor rock- The colors are beautiful and vibrant.  These watercolor paints are also SO MUCH EASIER to use than the typical pan watercolors.  My preschooler doesn't typically enjoy painting with me because he struggles with getting enough color on his paint brush.  I think he really enjoyed today's project because it was easy and the colors came out looking fabulous!

So here's our first liquid watercolor project- Tada!  We used our liquid watercolors to dye some wooden beads and peg dolls to make these lovely, family necklaces!

Let's Make Colorful Watercolor-Dyed Peg Doll Necklaces!


 How to dye wooden beads and peg dolls with liquid watercolors and turn them into a beautiful, family necklace!
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I got inspiration for this necklace craft from my friend Meri from Meri Cherry Blog.  She shared a really genius post showing how to how to dye wooden beads with her toddler.  (She also has a ton of other easy and beautiful art ideas to do with young children, so definitely check her blog out!)  


How to Make Peg Doll Necklaces:

1.  Drill a hole through your peg dolls' heads.   

2.  Dye your wooden peg dolls and wooden beads.  

  • I covered our table. (We worked inside, but next time I think we'll work outside to make cleanup easier!)

  • We made the dye!  We squirted a couple of drops of Liquid Watercolors into the bottoms of disposable cups.  Then, we added just a tiny bit of water to each cup to dilute the colors.  (Note:  I'm not sure I would add as much last time.  We added more water to our green and very little water to our blue.  You can see the difference water makes below.)

  • I placed all my cups inside of a disposible baking dish... just in case the cups tipped over. (FYI- They did.  But it was fine because the baking dish caught all the liquid!)

  • Then, I gave my preschooler a couple of plastic spoons and watercolor brushes.  He could drop the the beads and dolls in.... or paint them.  He chose to do both, but seemed to really enjoy dropping them into the watercolors.  

  • I also made sure to have plenty of towels and rags around to help with cleanup! 


3.  Once we dyed our beads and dolls, we placed them out to dry.  (It took a couple of hours for them to dry fully.)

how to dye wooden beads with liquid watercolors with kids


4.  Then, I grabbed my Sharpie markers and drew on some features.

How to dye wooden peg people with liquid watercolors


5.  Then, we went to town and strung our family necklaces.

how to make a lovely liquid watercolor dyed peg doll and wooden bead necklace


Ack.  They're just too cute!

how to make colorful peg doll and wooden bead necklaces using liquid watercolors


I really hope you have fun making these colorful and fun family necklaces with the kiddos too!

And if you're looking for other colorful and unique kids art and craft ideas, check out the links below!




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Happy creating, friends!


how to make a cute family necklace from wooden peg dolls and beads dyed by liquid watercolors