Snowflake Beaded Safety Pin – A Fun Winter Kid Craft

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For many of us the first few months of the year bring cold and bad weather that often leads to snow days. Kids love snow days, but after a few a kid’s excitement can quickly turn to boredom. That’s why it’s always good to have fun kid crafts on hand like this snowflake beaded safety pin. It’s the perfect beaded safety pin pattern to use for the next snow day!

Snowflake Beaded Safety Pin

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Should we take a vote to see who has had the most snow days this year? We’re actually on the lower end with only two. I have several friends whose kid’s already are going to be making school time up due to a lot of snow days. It is certainly the year for them!

I am not a fan of winter. I don’t like cold and to me snow is more work than it could ever be worth. For years I have said that the only thing snow is good for is snow days. Having been a substitute teacher for many years I still got to partake in the enjoyment of getting a snow day.

As a work at home mom snow days are a bit more work. I not only have my son at home with me while I’m working, but I often have to find time to shovel. Both can take a lot of my time that I should spend focusing on working.

Trying to help Nick decide what to do when he’s bored can take awhile, and I do not have time for that. I find it helps to have things on hand and ready to go when he gets tired with what he’s doing. Beaded safety pins are great for that because it’s so easy to keep the supplies on hand, and there are lots of fun designs you can make. On a snow day though a snowflake beaded safety pin would certainly be my go to choice.

Supplies Needed for a Snowflake Beaded Safety Pin

• 12 Size 3 safety pins (2″ 51mm pins)
• 6/0 Seed beads (78 blue and 32 white)
• Butter knife
• Pliers

How to Make a Snowflake Beaded Safety Pin

I have to admit that I have gotten a little addicted to creating beaded safety pins for the last several months. They are a lot of fun to make, but not always so easy to design. Luckily for you I’ve cut the hard part of the process out by giving you a pattern to work with.

Now the teacher in me always likes to give a little disclaimer about the beaded pins. I create the designs with kids in mind, but they are really geared towards older kids. Of course pins and little ones really don’t mix, but the seed beads are also very small.

One more tip before we get into the design steps. If you’re new to seed beads please be aware that they are not created equally. Each bead varies by both height and width. This can cause the design to not look quite right when you put the pins together. It’s not a big deal. Just play around with the beads until things look right. If nothing else, this helps spread the craft out longer. Snow days can be long!

Building the Beaded Safety Pins

To keep things consistent I always discuss the order of the safety pins from left to right. This pin though is the same on each side. The middle pin is the only one that doesn’t have a mirror image, so you really can create the pin starting on either end. For the most part it doesn’t really matter.

In my opinion the easiest way to create the pin is by first building each individual beaded safety pin. That way it’s not such a headache if the beads don’t line up right and you have to redo a pin.

To create each pin all you need to do is open up one of the safety pins and slide each of the 10 beads on to it. Then clasp it closed and set it to the side. To make the final steps easier I like to line my pins up in the order that they are going to go in on the main pin.

The designs of the pins are as follows:

Pin 1: 10 Blue seed beads

Pin 2: 1 Blue seed bead, 1 White seed bead, 3 Blue seed beads, 1 White seed bead, 3 Blue seed beads, 1 White seed bead

Pin 3: 2 Blue seed beads, 1 White seed bead, 2 Blue seed beads, 1 White seed bead, 2 Blue seed beads, 1 White seed bead, 1 Blue seed bead

Pin 4: 3 Blue seed beads, 1 White seed bead, 1 Blue seed bead, 1 White seed bead, 1 Blue seed bead, 1 White seed bead, 2 Blue seed beads

Pin 5: 4 Blue seed beads, 3 White seed beads, 3 Blue seed beads

Pin 6: 1 Blue seed bead, 4 White seed beads, 1 Blue seed bead, 4 White seed beads

Pin 7: 4 Blue seed beads, 3 White seed beads, 3 Blue seed beads

Pin 8: 3 Blue seed beads, 1 White seed bead, 1 Blue seed bead, 1 White seed bead, 1 Blue seed bead, 1 White seed bead, 2 Blue seed beads

Pin 9: 2 Blue seed beads, 1 White seed bead, 2 Blue seed beads, 1 White seed bead, 2 Blue seed beads, 1 White seed bead, 1 Blue seed bead

Pin 10: 1 Blue seed bead, 1 White seed bead, 3 Blue seed beads, 1 White seed bead, 3 Blue seed beads, 1 White seed bead

Pin 11: 10 Blue seed beads

Assembling the Beaded Safety Pin

Now comes the trickier part of the craft, assembling the entire pin. Truthfully it’s not really that hard. It can be a little confusing for kids though and does involve tools, so this part usually requires some parental help.

The first thing you need to do is widen the coil of the safety pin that you’ll be putting all the beaded pins on. You won’t need to widen it a lot, just enough to allow you to slide the the other pins around it.

Opening the coil is fairly simple. Just take a thin butter knife and insert it into the coil. Then pull the knife towards you. Just a little pull should be enough.

Now it’s time to add the beaded pins. I would start at Pin 1 and continue to Pin 11, but since the pin is a mirror image of itself you could go backwards as well.

You attach the pins by sliding the hole of the beaded pin onto the opened side of the main pin. When you get to the opened coil you’re just going to slide the pin around it.

This might sound confusing but you’ll like get the hang of it quickly after you’ve tried it with a few pins. If the pin won’t slide very easily around than just work on  opening the coil up a bit wider.

One lesson that I learned with my first pin is that it is important to make sure that the beaded pins are all facing the same way when you attach them. Otherwise you end up with them facing different directions when they get to the other side of the coil.

It’s up to you weather you have the pins face left or right when putting them on. I have done it both ways and both work. Just make sure you have them face in the same direction every time.

When all of the beaded pins have been added the only thing left to do is to use the pliers to pinch the coil shut. If you don’t close it then the beaded pins tend to slide back into the coil.

I hope that your kids enjoy this craft, and that it helps keep them occupied on their next snow day!

More Beaded Pins and Other Beaded Kid Crafts

• American Flag Bead Pin
• Bead Crafts for Kids
• Christmas Tree Bead Pin – Christmas Kid Craft
• Turkey Bead Pin – Thanksgiving Kid Craft