Pony Bead crafts

I'd always had these as a kid, and now the little ones have them everywhere. After discovering Pinterest, they made their way to my Amazon basket, alongside a bundle of cocktail sticks and lollipop sticks, and three days later, they arrived to me.
A few ideas are from Pinterest, but I'm proud to claim some of these myself!

1. The Hobby-Horse.
This is so simple! You need carboard/balsa wood, pen or paint, a cocktail stick, and a pony bead. You also need a house without screaming children running around, an open window, a candle, and a hot, thick needle or potato skewer.
1. Have the cocktail stick handy. Lighting the candle, heat the needle or potato skewer, and push through the plastic to create a hole. As soon as you can fit the cocktail stick through, it's done. You only need one hole- so the cocktail stick sits inside the bead to make a wheel.
2. Cut the horse head or animal head shapes, and stick to the other end of the cocktail stick. My picture isn't great, sadly, but I had a little one do this, and she picked a simple design for Maia Nutt, and I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out!

2. Tealight candles
This is even more simple!
You'll need- airdry clay (I used mine from FlyingTiger), pony beads, and either black thread, or a cocktail stick and orange pen/paint.
1. Pull off a small piece of clay, and roll a cyclinder shape. Push through the pony bead, to create the "candle". The glass holder is the pony bead.
2. Before the clay dries, either push the thread "wick" in, or colour the point of a cocktail stick in, and trim to make a flame.

Sometimes, the white clay candle can be removed/falls out of the pony bead, and I used these to fill the lamps on the canal boat. I imagine that you could glue/double sided tape the candles into the pony bead moulds.

3. Beauty bottles/perfumes
These take seconds- and can be any colour or design you like!
Simply glue a small button (6mm) or jewel to the top of a bead, and create a pretty hand soap or perfume for your ladies. Here's the fab table of Mrs Underwood.

4. Lamps
Also on Mrs Underwood's table is a lamp made of three beads, and the cap of an UHU 125mm tube. It's super easy and looks great. I glued the stack of beads first with UHU, then added the cap to be the shade.

5. Toy wheels
There's a lot of fun for the children at the Goodfellow house going on here. I made the cart and dolls pram out of cocktail sticks and tongue depressors, and painted with acrylic. The pony beads don't move but look great.

6. Yoyos
I don't have any photos of these, as I'm away! However, they look nice in the background of photos. I used wire wrapped around the edges, and a sticker to cover the hole to create a toy for the boys. Using thin wire allowed me to pose the yoyos and get some nice scenes- now, if I hadn't lost them on the computer...

7. Water bottles
These are also from Pinterest! These are three pony beads, and I added a 6mm white button to the top to create a stylish sports bottle for the children in my version. I couldn't find the photo I'd taken, but they look similar to the shampoo on the washstand- again, 6mm white button was used.

8. Toy caterpillar
Inspired by the wooden beads I saw online, I used a fluffy big chenille stick, and a number of different colours of green to make this toy for Ned, before adding the face with marker. I used a dab of glue to stick the head and tail on.

9. Playpen spinners
I love these playpens for my babies, as they are a toy as well as an easy bed. These ones have a cocktail stick or BBQ skewer with colourful beads to allow the babies to play.  Here's another view of them.

10. Glasses
From a distance, these can look good as tumblers- I used this one when I couldn't find my kitchen extras to get a photo of Coco in her kitchen.

So, there they are. It's surprising just how versatile these things are, and I'm adding them to my list of favourite craft supplies. I've also been messing about with perler/hamma/ironing beads lately, so I'll see if I've got ten uses for those, too!

Thanks, and remember, be careful when using heat and plastic- I have no responsibility for any burns or injuries or critter damage!