Pixy Stick “Sand” Necklaces are a really fun party activity. We have all seen sand art in bottles and these cute plastic necklaces that are available. Maybe you haven’t. You can find a variety of shapes and themes at Amazon. Here’s an example of the shell:
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I originally came up with the idea for this activity at Abby’s 3rd birthday, and the kids loved it. What kid wouldn’t? It involves eating shots of sugar. My philosophy? It’s a party! I don’t do soda with my kids, but at a party I might allow it. I came up with the idea because I found these great plastic necklaces, but I thought the colored sand was pretty expensive. I thought about what might be able to replace the sand, and I thought of the Pixy sticks. I just bought a bunch at the dollar store and cut the costs significantly. As I was planning the mermaid party, buying these shell necklaces was a great option. You can buy them at Amazon to make it easy for you, but I had actually purchased mine at Oriental Trading Company, so that’s another great place to look.
All you need are the plastic necklaces and some Pixy sticks.
All kids do is rip them open and dump them in the opening of the necklace. I encouraged them to fill them up all the way to the top so the sugar didn’t have a chance to shift and the sugar “sand” would stay in a fun, beautiful striped pattern. I also encouraged them to try and rip the top of and not use their teeth because the moisture makes it impossible for the sugar to dump. There were some littler kids there that needed help with this. Because it might not be intuitive to kids, I also reminded them to use different colors so they can get the striped look.
Here is Abby and a few of her friends at the Pixy stick table. For some reason, this picture helped me imagine these girls in Jr. High or high school. It is funny and a little weird but exciting when you get these small glimpses into the future.
Some kids had more fun eating the sugar than actually dumping it. I won’t mention any names…thank you very much.
Stay tuned at Meaningful Mama to see more inspiration for a mermaid party, under the sea party or other parties that might be upcoming in your future.
This is so brilliant! Love it! Great idea!!!! 🙂
Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
how cute! So fun for the kids!
Great idea! Do you know how many pixie sticks it took to fill one shell?
Good question. In the picture, each colored layer represents one pixy stick. So, I would estimate it took 8-9 sticks.
Do you have a link to the plastic seashells?
Hello! Yes, I do have an Amazon affiliate link. Here ya go: https://amzn.to/2OLtpeK