Homemade Beaded Pipe Cleaner Bubble Wands for Extra Summer Fun

I have seen lovely, whimsical bubble wands made from bent wire and beads, and while my girls would love these, there is no way they could bend the wire. So I decided to try making them from pipe cleaners and pony beads! (Fortunately the lovely folks over at CraftProjectIdeas.com kindly provided the pipe cleaners and pony beads. While they were given to me free to use however I wished, I do purchase their products frequently!)

We started with 2 pipe cleaners for each wand. We twisted the first pipe cleaner together to make the handle adding beads along the way.

We twisted the second around the first to make it a bit sturdier and then shaped it. I think to make them again I would twist half of each pipe cleaner together to make the handle and the second half to make the top. That may be a bit sturdier and easier.

While the girls were busy working on their wands Eli was using the pom poms that came with the pipe cleaners to practice putting one in each section of a silicon baking pan. Then he went on to stringing beads on pipe cleaners (I didn't know he could do this, but he grabbed a pipe cleaner and started)!

Once we had a bunch of wands made, we headed out to try them!  It was super windy, but we still got some bubbles.

The kids were disappointed the bubbles didn't come out in the shape of the wand, but they had a great time!

Once we were finished, I rinsed the wands with water and laid them to dry.  The next morning they are good as new and quite useful as princess wands too!