The Iron Age Celts loved to show off their wealth and importance by wearing fancy gold necklaces called torcs. Copy their look by making your own – it's blingtastic!

How to make a celtic torc

A handmade necklace crafted from colourful tissue paper and pipe cleaners.

What you need

  • An adult helper
  • 12 different coloured, 30cm long pipe cleaners
  • 1 sheet of colourful tissue paper
  • Some masking tape
  • A ruler.
The initial stages of crafting a handmade necklace.

1. Make the shape

  • Take 3 pipe cleaners and twist them together. Do the same with another 3.
  • Use your ruler to measure how long you want your torc to be and join the two pieces together. You'll need about 7cm at the end to make the loops.
  • Bend your torc into shape to check you are happy with the length.
Two hands holding a  curved black pipe cleaner.
A black pipe cleaner bent into a curve with loops at each end.

2. Make it bling

  • Straighten out your torc and wrap it with your tissue paper
  • Twist it gently around the whole torc and secure the ends with masking tape
  • Take two pipe cleaners and wrap them tightly around the ends, covering the masking tape on each side
  • Curl these ends to make the loops on your torc.
Two hands holding orange paper twisted into a curved shape.
Orange paper twisted into a shape with loops at both ends.

3. Finish it off

  • Take the remaining four pipe cleaners and join them together to make one long piece. Wrap it round the torc, as shown.
A handmade necklace crafted from colourful tissue paper and pipe cleaners.

Your torc is ready to wear!

Where will you show off your new Celtic bling?