Spoonful of Cereal Necklace

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so why not pay homage to it all day with a breakfast cereal necklace? Both colorful and whimsical, this easy to make necklace will brighten your morning, afternoon, and evening, but it might leave you craving the sugary sweetness of one of your favorite childhood cereals.

This necklace requires very few materials to create, but you will need a fair number of tools to construct your pendant and fake cereal.

Supplies

1. Polymer Clay in the following colors:
   1. Red
   2. Purple
   3. Yellow
   4. Blue
   5. Orange
   6. Green (Not pictured)
2. Sandpaper
3. Aluminum foil in a waded ball
4. Sculpey Bake and Bond
5. A cleaned mascara brush or similar wire brush
6. Necklace chain and clasp
7. Soft paintbrush
8. Xacto knife
9. Spoon
10. Jewelry pliers
11. Metal cutters
12. White soft pastel (Not pictured)

The first step in creating your necklace is constructing the spoon pendant. This processes is made easier if you use a metal spoon with a lot of bend to it, so look for cheap spoons at your local dollar store or Walmart. Once you've found the perfect spoon:

1. Use metal cutters to remove the majority of the spoon handle while leaving approximately 1.5 - 2" of handle still attached.
2. Use sandpaper to smooth down the metal where you made your cut.
3. Take your jewelry pliers and bend the shortened handle back to form a loop through which you will later thread your necklace chain.

Now set aside your spoon pendant while you make some yummy, albeit inedible, cereal.

Cereal time! While there are many wonderful cereals out there, I chose to represent Froot Loops® because they are colorful and easy to sculpt. If you're feeling more adventurous or have another childhood cereal to which you have pledged your fidelity, feel free to branch out and do your own thing during this step, but if you like the look of the Froot Loops®, follow along:

1. Portion out a quarter sized lump of each color of polymer clay.
2. Roll out the lumps into thin tubes with a diameter of about 0.25 inches or less.
3. Cut the long tubes into sections that measure about 1.5 inches, and connect the ends of the sections so that they look like small doughnuts. For my necklace, I made two doughnuts of each color.
4. Take your crumpled aluminum foil wad and dab it gently all over the surface of the clay Froot Loops®. This will create an uneven texture that mimics the real cereal.
5. To further roughen the surface of the clay, take a cleaned mascara brush and scrape along the clay.
   1. Tip: Poke the mascara brush through the hole in the Froot Loops® where the aluminum foil cannot reach.
6. Use an Xacto knife to scrape off some the white soft pastel into a pile of powder.
7. Dab a soft paintbrush into the pile of white powder and dust it onto the surface of the clay Froot Loops®. This technique makes the clay Froot Loops® appear as though they are covered in sugar like the real cereal.
8. Congrats! You have finished sculpting your fake cereal!
9. Put all your clay Froot Loops® into the oven and bake according to polymer clay package instructions.

After your fake Froot Loops® have cooled, you can begin assembling your necklace!

1. Pour Sculpey Bake and Bond into the spoon. This will be your milk.
   1. Tip: Do not fill the spoon all the way because, as the clay Froot Loops® are added, the Bake and Bond will displace and fill more of the spoon.
2. Add the faux cereal to the spoon.
   1. Tip: As you pile up the fake cereal, not all the pieces will rest securely in the Bake and Bond "milk," so to ensure that the pieces at the top of the pile are attached to the ones on the bottom, dab a drop of Bake and Bond onto the individual Froot Loops® before resting them on top of the pile.
3. When you have all of your faux cereal positioned how you like it, bake everything--spoon and all--in the oven according to the packaging instructions on the Bake and Bond.
4. After the spoon has cooled from being in the oven, thread a clasp and chain through the loop where the spoon handle used to be.

Now enjoy your new necklace!