Make a LARGE Rosary ~ It's the perfect size for Children!

Hi Everyone! Hope you are all having a great summer! I’ve been keeping very busy painting, cleaning, and reorganizing the house. My goal this summer is to clean up and clear out! My summer motto has been: “Use it or trash it!” So far my house is a lot more organized and I’ve trashed a mountain of stuff from our shed!

As I was cleaning out some of my craft supplies I found a bag of large wooden beads. I discovered I had enough to make a large Rosary. So after finding a large wooden cross I thought I’d go ahead and use these beads instead of trashing them. I’m so glad I did…

My 6 year old daughter, Naomi, helped me to make one!  She counted out all the beads and then we strung them on the ribbon one at a time.

These are the beads that where in my bead bag. You can buy beads similar to these at your local craft store.  I bought the cross in the wooden cut-out section of a craft store a few years ago. They do still have similar crosses today. We strung the beads on thin satin ribbon.

First add your ten “Hail Mary” beads. Then add the “Our Father” beads. We used long thin beads and small round beads to separate the “Hail Mary” and “Our Father” beads.

This is what the “Our Father” bead set looks like on our Rosary.

If you have trouble with your ribbon or string fraying use a match to melt the end together.

Note: This only works if the material of the string/ribbon is a synthetic material.

After you have the 5 Hail Mary decades and the 4 Our Father beads on the ribbon you can begin the next step! Be sure you leave each of the ribbon ends very long. You will use both to create the end of the Rosary.

We used the long beads and a small round beads for the center. Push both ends of the ribbon through the round bead and the long beads.

Use both ends of the ribbon to string on the rest of your beads. This will allow you to tie on a cross. Using this method creates only one knot on the rosary, so it will be much stronger.  After knotting the ribbon around the top of the cross, I hot glued the knot so it would hold-up better to the abuse of children.

I\’m sure you will need to adapt your rosary to fit the beads you have. So feel free to create your rosary a little different than ours.

Our large Rosary has been well loved. The kids have been taking turns using it while we pray our daily Rosary. They even gave Dad a turn!

I think our kitten, Milkshake, wanted a turn with the Rosary, too! She kept hopping in while I took these pictures – I had to share! 🙂

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

May God bless you with joy and peace!

~Jen-Marie