Dress up a vase, glass, or jar with a few strands of sparkly beads. The inspiration project has you use elastic thread to make a series of bracelet-type things that slip over a vase, but I thought I would dollar store craft-ify the project for you. [Project by Julie Mulligan]

Even though the original project is an elegant, pretty vase, the color chosen for the beads, purple, made me think of tweens. Thinking of tweenish jewelry made me think of those plastic dress-up beads they sell in the toy section at the dollar store. I thought this project would be a great use for those colorful, and cheap, beads. You can also check the jewelry section of the dollar store for other inexpensive necklace options. My mom would call them “junk jewelry.”

You can use hot glue for this project, but the gloppy nature of it might not be as pretty with the sparkling glass. Maybe E6000 would be a better choice, as it adheres to glass.

Project Materials:

• Vase, drinking glass, or recycled jar (my favorite option!), on hand or $1
• Various strands of plastic beaded necklaces, $1 and up
• Glue, on hand

Total cost: About $5