Pine needle jewellery and pretty things

When I was a child my mother taught me how to make necklaces from pine needles. Our recent holiday in the forest bought this back to me (oh how I love the smell of pine forests) so Isabella, Jules and I sat for an hour making things with pine needles.

Here’s how you do the necklaces:

1. Pull complete ‘V’ shaped needles off – you will probably need about 20 (allowing for some breaking!)

2. Carefully remove one of the needles from the V, without damaging the brown “cocoon” that it sits in. Bend round the remaining needle and tuck the pointy end into the cocoon. It should stay (some don’t, just discard and use another).

3. Repeat this process but loop each new “link” into the previous to create your necklace! If you want it to last a bit longer, put a bit of PVA glue at the top of each link.

While we doing this, Isabella decided to put beads onto the pine needles, so we tucked the ends into the top bead to make a loop and hung them from the trees – so pretty! They probably won’t last long but it is a nice way for the little ones to learn about threading!