DIY Animal Charm Necklaces

This is an incredibly simple craft project that is inexpensive (and I think) very cute. We did this little craft at my daughter’s birthday and it was a big hit.

This one is perfect for rainy days or summer afternoons to bring a little charm and whimsy to your little one’s outfit.

You simply create a fun little necklace (or keychain) from cute plastic animals. I love them as a necklace but some of the girls chose to make keychains instead to hang off their backpacks. Really cute and so simple!

Here is what we did:

You will need some assorted plastic animals – there are TONS to choose from online or at the craft store. Mini fairies, zoo animals, farm animals, sharks, dinosaurs, fish and so on. You can buy them individually or in packs. I bought a farm animal pack for our farm themed birthday and had a few safari animals left from a prior project.

You can leave the animals as is or paint them with spray paint. We actually painted animals previously and the craft paint we used didn’t coat well and faded/chipped off. I think a solid spray paint would probably work much better. I didn’t get a shot of a bright pink elephant we painted for one necklace but it looked fantastic. Gold spray paint, bright green or navy would look amazing as well.

Usually crafts for kids get left out while they move on to the next thing but at my daughter’s birthday, the girls were so excited about their necklaces they immediately raced inside to tuck them into safe places.

Next you want to pick up some small eye hooks- these can be found at any hardware store. I picked mine up in the screw and nail section of Home Depot. The eye hooks will just screw in easily to your animal. The trick though is to balance the weight of the animal with the hook. For example the zebra above has a heavy neck/head so we should have screwed the eyehook a little closer to the neck instead of centering it. That will keep the animal straight when you put the necklace on.

Next gather up some tassels, beads, charms or other little accessories to jazz up your necklace. I picked up a pack of beads and some little tassels in the jewelry section of the craft store.

Now just measure the length that you want the necklace to fall on the child, cut the cord and feed the animal of your choice onto the cord. **When you are selecting your beads and cording be sure to get something thin enough to match your beads. The beads above had very small holes so the fine bead cord I used just barely fit through the hole.

Add beads, tassels or the decorations of your choice and knot securely at the top once finished. Simple, simple, simple.

This allows each child to shine with creativity. I saw so many pretty necklaces from the kids at our party- here are a few: