What Do Folks In Louisiana Do With All of Those Beads After Mardi Gras?

SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA, La. (KPEL News) - It's Mardi Gras season ya'll! It's the time of the year we celebrate all of the great things about being from Louisiana. From the festivals to the parades and Mardi Gras balls, it's a celebration that lasts from New Years to the day before Ash Wednesday, a last hurrah before we celebrate the Lenten Season and the Easter Holiday.

Throws Are A Long-running Mardi Gras Tradition

One of the main symbols of the holiday are the plastic, multi-colored beads that are typically thrown during Mardi Gras Parades. According to mardigrasneworleans.com, the throwing of trinkets to the crowds was started in the early 1870s by the Twelfth Night Revelers, and is a time-honored expectation for young and old alike.

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In 1884, Rex started using medallions instead of trinkets, represented by today's doubloons, aluminum and anodized in many different colors. They usually depict the parade theme on one side and the Krewe's emblem on the other. They have become collectors items

How Did Beads Become a Mardi Gras Staple?

But why beads? According to Time magazine, "the throwing of beads and fake jewels, from parade floats to those watching down below, is thought to have started in the late 19th century, when a carnival king threw fake strands of gems and rings to his “loyal subjects” sometime in the 1890s. By the early 1920s, one of the Krewes, probably Rex, started regularly throwing strands of glass Czech beads, a precursor to the plastic beads seen today."

Once Mardi Gras is over, if you're like my family, you'll have bags full of beads and trinkets and nothing to do with them! What do you do with those beads after the holday is over? We have a few suggestions.

What Do We Do With All Those Leftover Beads?

Make a Chandelier

Pinterest can be a treasure trove of ideas, including this nifty idea from The Garden Style. They suggest you take those old beads and transform them into a lighting fixture that everyone will talk about.

Donate Them To a School or LARC

Every year my kids' school would host a Mardi Gras parade, and every year we would send all of our riches from the previous year to the school. If they don't have a parade at your local school, you can consider donating them to LARC to sell at their store.

Mardi Gras Beads-n-More is a LARC Enterprise, which creates jobs and opportunities for individuals with developmental disabilities. The bead store hours are Monday-Friday from 9am-2:30 pm. It is here you will find LARC individuals sorting through beads. They are first measured by size then bundled into a dozen of the same size/length. They are then bagged according to specific size.

Make Christmas Decorations

If you're looking for some inexpensive garland for your Christmas tree, look no further! You can pick out the specific colors that fit your holiday theme, and make beautiful bead garland to accent any tree. If you're really crafty, you can probably fashion or bedazzle a few ornaments using the beads as well!

Make a Mardi Gras or Holiday Wreath

If you're really crafty, you can turn those Mardi Gras throws into next years front door wreath! You can probably craft a wreath for any holiday. Pull out the red, green, and gold beads for Christmas. Use the red, white, and blue beads for the Fourth of July. You get the idea.

Make Beautiful Art

If you really have a lot of time on your hands, you can break the beads down into individual pieces. By separating the colors, you can create a beautiful mosaic effect, that is sure to wow anyone who gazes upon it.

Grab those scissors and hot glue guns and get crafting this Mardi Gras Season!