Fast, Cheap, and Easy Beginner Wands for Kids

Bubbles are a great way to keep a crowd of kids entertained in the summer.  Bubble juice is easy, and budget friendly to make, but supplying enough wands can be challenging, and expensive.  With just a few basic craft supplies kids can make their own wands, and play all day!

• A loop cut from a small t-shirt makes a nice tri-string. Attach the sticks using a small rubber band, or tie it to the sticks directly.
• The base of this is a butterfly net from the dollar store. I crocheted around the wire, and attached pipe cleaner loops. The intersections between the smaller loops are stuck together with a little hot glue.

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Materials:

• Pipe cleaners- available from just about any craft or dollar store.
• Yarn- Red Heart Super Saver available in pretty much any Walmart, or the recesses of most craft closets, or "I Love This Cotton" from Hobby Lobby work well.  Lion Brand Homespun makes a serviceable tri-string. Dish cloth yarn like Peaches & Cream, or Sugar & Cream isn't recommended- it doesn't wick well. Chenielle/blanket yarn wasn't great either.  I'm currently testing other yarns.  If you have yarn shop your stash.  There's a good chance you'll find something that will work.
• Sticks- dowels, chopsticks, or regular old sticks from trees work well.  I like 3/16" 12-inch long dowels for use with kids.  Walmart sells a pack of 16 for $1, but they're available at most craft stores or online. 
• Small silicone rubber bands from the hair supply section of the dollar store are a nice to have item for attaching strings onto sticks.

Basic method:

A simple hoop like this can be made in a few minutes, and it creates streams of basketball sized bubbles.

To make this:

1. 

   Start by twisting two pipe cleaners end to end to create a longer section- make two of these.  

Twist the pipe cleaners together to make them a bit more sturdy. 

   2.  Leaving a few inches of string at the beginning wrap the pipe cleaners with yarn.  

3.  Bend it into a circle, and twist the ends together

4.  Attach it to a dowel using the string to secure it.  Bundle the shorter end of the string with the pipe cleaners while you are wrapping it.  Tie a knot using both ends of the string to secure everything, and trim the ends.

Once you have the basic technique you can use pipe cleaners to make all sorts of bubble toys like garlands, or lassos.  They're not high-end super durable builds, but they're a heck of a lot of fun for just a few pennies.

This garland cost less than 30 cents to make

Big Bubble Pipe cleaner Garland-1

This is just 3 single pipe cleaners wrapped with yarn, and tied together:

Big Bubble Lasso Garland

Have fun!!!!