Epic Win: Pony Bead Lizard Keychains
Submitted by Jessica H
Personally, I don’t really understand these. I remember them being all the rage, but why? Were they a summer camp thing? And why lizards? Please answer my questions in the comments so I can sleep at night. I’ll post the best responses.
Updated: Featured Comments
zeramite explains:
They started in summer camps i think. They were fairly easy to make and didn’t look too bad either, i remember making some as a child. As to the “why Lizards” question, lizards weren’t the only things you could make like this cats, dogs, Angels, and fish among other things can be made using this method. Though some were harder than others
Another explanation from rabidrabbit:
lol i used to love those! i learned them when i was in Girl Guides. you can make different things but i think lizards or geckos were quite easy and you couldn’t really go wrong with them.
Wow, I’m amazed how much work people will put into something. Making a stop motion video like that probably took hours.
They started in summer camps i think. They were fairly easy to make and didn’t look too bad either, i remember making some as a child. As to the “why Lizards” question, lizards weren’t the only things you could make like this cats, dogs, Angels, and fish among other things can be made using this method. Though some were harder than others
I used to makes these all the time! I had a book that taught me how to make all kinds of animals!
lol i used to love those! i learned them when i was in Girl Guides. you can make different things but i think lizards or geckos were quite easy and you couldn’t really go wrong with them.
Amazingly enough I just found my old bin of all my bead animals i made back in the day (and maybe 1 the other day for giggles)
Im pretty sure the most common was lizzards due to everything mirroring each other and not a long of beads/string threading. Lizzards were ez mode.
I remember the pony bead keychain and necklaces…but they were shaped into a cross…and one kid have a Star of David one. EVERY kid in 7th grade had to have one, yet I never did.
I had a million pony beads.. but never did i make a lizard. I remember them, yes, but i also remember thinking they were sooo lame. I rocked all kinds of gaudy bracelets and necklaces though, so can’t really judge now.
wow, I used to make those in middle school, i made mini ones from glass beads and charged a whole dollar for them. I made like 25 bucks, that was a lot back then. I still got a few somewhere around here lol. Wow that was a long time ago…
LOL I used to do the same thing with Creepy Crawlers!
thee were just a fun craft to do. Yu could do all sorts of things with these. It’s just that the Lizard was the easiest. My sister still wears one all the time. Those things will never die.
omg! my friend made me one of these in elementary school.
I’m 18 now & still have it on my key chain!
I also have one on my keychain yet. My daughter made it for me in Gator colors
We did them in black, dark green and white and called them gators since our team mascot was the Gators.
i only made snakes i wasnt very good at the legs back then but now im so good i can make lace necklaces out of seed beads which are smaller than a pin head
I totally remember these. It was a Girl Guides and Summer camp thing. Although I could never do legs right, so I just made a bunch of snakes. xD
I remember these! I could do just about anything with pony beads, and did. Want your name in glow in the dark letters. Done. Hearts where very hard, but doable. . . lizards, easy piezy. . . I wonder when they went out of style? D;
I still have a ton of these! lizards, and a bunch of harder ones (including a large dog, a hula bear, and a lion) and i still have a bunch that family members and stuff had… and i have taught all my old enough nieces and nephews how to make them
I had a kit for making all different animals with those beads. I sold them at school for a pound each… I think Beth still owes me money…
lol, I remember these being popular when I was a kid. I always thought they were trashy looking. I remember women using them as keychains and having half a dozen other things on the same ring. They were the same type of women who had super long bright red finger nails and carried their cigarettes in those god awful pleather cigarette cases.
I refused to EVER go near ponybeads because of how strongly I felt about the “trashy” look they gave off, lol
Yes, they were a summer camp thing. Lizards? Because snakes would have been boring.
not always lizards! i made snakes and alligators too! i remember i had a whole kit for making these. i had a sample lizard made up of all the different colors of pony beads available for custom design. sold these lil buggers at $3 a pop, $5 for a custom shape or color pattern. i got extra for Gators gators and Seminole snakes. ahh, middle school…
I never liked working with pony beads because they’re big, the holes are big, and unless you were stringing them with something you wanted to be seen, it would be seen. But these sorts of kits actually started my love affair with beaded jewelry, and now I fiddle with super-tiny beads and filaments, and Swarovski crystals and the like
Same here
I have my own jewelry business now, stemming from a love of putting beads together, discovered when I had a kit for critters like this about 12 years ago.
I used to love these things! I had buckets of pony beads and had a book on how to make different animals. Lizards were one of the easiest to make, so that probably explains why they were so popular. They made little kits too that came with instructions for 1 or 2 animals and had pre-selected colors with just enough to make the animals (with maybe a couple beads extra).
I still have a black rat one on my bag (I think it was the first animal I ever made ^.^)…and I’m 20 years old now lol…I haven’t made on since 6th grade or so ^.^ I just found the rat the other day while going through some boxes in my mum’s attic.
I made an airplane once, it was pretty cool. Never made a lizard, though. Now I sort of want to.
i always liked the lizards, but i could never for the life of me figure out how to make one. i’d really like to make one now, you guys have me thinking about it…
I got a kit of these I remember and I could never figure out how to make them! They were so hard! I had a kit of them and I just couldn’t figure them out and always had to have mom do the work, eventually I learned how and I still have a panda I made.
One of my friends made one of these for me for my birthday. I still have it
I LOVED these!! I used to make ‘em too!
These things were insanely popular when I was in elementry school in the 90’s. the more you had the more popular you were and if you could make them you were the best because you made them for everyone else. I have a snake one my friend made me randomly one day in high school. I always wanted to learn, maybe some day I will XD
I wanna make one of these now!
I remember those! I made tons of them during the summer when I was bored. The beads and string was cheap. Eventually, I figured out how to make anything I wanted by following a few basic formulas. I tried making one again not too long ago. I used wire instead of that weird string that always frayed and seedbeads instead of pony beads. The wire did some weird things so I had to make it up as I went along and I eventually ended up with a completely 3d rat.
My friend used to use candy. Considering that wasn’t my first candy type post, you can guess that I am huge.
Eh. I had some of those, never really got into it though. I remember making a smiley face, and trying to make other stuff but having it kick my ass.
umm lizards definitely weren’t the only thing and I think they became the rage because of all the variety. My friends and I would have basically geek offs over who could make the best one. I think the winner was the 3D turtle alien.
Yeah, I think my sister and I invented these… We were just playing around with pony beads, and discovered you could make different shapes (we started with snakes). We thought they were cool so we sold some at our next garage sale. Within a few months, we started seeing them everywhere, in the stores. We felt really cheated, lol.
These are still crazy popular! We had a lot of fun making them with the kids at camp – geckos, snakes, butterflies and dragonflies are the ones the kids enjoy making most
I never could make this. It always made me so mad.
However, my sister made me one. Its still on my bookbag.
I remember these! I made one in Biology class last year that was in the shape of a brain neuron. All the idiot kids in my class kept asking me to do theirs… I guess they would benefit from the extra neuron, yes?
Point is, I was real young, but I was around enough to remember these things as a kid. These, and original Polly Pocket. GOD I miss those things.
We had fundraisers at school in like 3rd grade and you could buy the lizards for like 2 bucks and the spiders for 4.
Good times.
I totally was teaching Girl Scouts how to make these this summer! THE TRADITION LIVES ON.