Making Moon Jewelry

Making Moon Jewelry

Making Moon Jewelry

Materials Needed:

  • Clay (oven dry type available at Hobby Lobby)
  • Round and moon clay or cookie cutters
  • Acrylic paint in gray (or silver) and black
  • Glow in the dark glitter glue or paint
  • Rings for mounting the moons to the necklace
  • Beads to use as spacers
  • Cording and fasteners, or premade necklaces with fasteners (1 per child)

Directions:

  1. Give each child a piece of clay
  2. Have the children work the clay until it warms up and becomes more pliable.
  3. Have the children press out the clay into an even layer
  4. Show students how to cut out the moon pieces to represent the phases.
  5. If you have round and crescent cutters you will need the following;
  6. 5 full circles (2 for the gibbous, 1 cut in half for the quarter moons, 1 for the new moon, and 1 for the full moon).
  7. 2 crescents for the crescent moons.
  8. Use a toothpick or sharpened pencil to put a hole in the top of each piece so you can add the ring.
  9. You must take the clay home and bake it according to the package instructions.
  10. Have the students base coat the moons with silver or gray paint.
  11. Once that coat is dry (you can use a hair dryer to speed up the process), have students use black to show the parts of the gibbous and full moons that are shadowed.
  12. Once the black is dry, students add glow in the dark glitter glue or paint to the parts of the moons that are reflecting the sun.
  13. After the paint is dry, put rings on each of the moon pieces so that they will hang on the necklaces. I used 2-1 through the moon piece, and another one attached to that one so the pieces would hang better.
  14. Have the students lay out the moon pieces in the correct order to represent the phases of the moon.
  15. Have students string one moon, then a spacer bead, then the next moon, and a spacer bead, etc until all pieces are on the necklace.
  16. Attach the jump ring so that the necklaces will hook.

This is pretty labor intensive, but could be done with cut outs on cardstock that are colored or painted and then laminated which would reduce the work. Once that is done, rings can be added and the pieces strung onto a necklace in the same way as above.

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