Upcycled abacus

Every weekend Ela is doing her home work given by school.
I help with English, my husband with Maths.
All wasn't much of a big deal until last week...

Ok, this seems to be nothing to you right? :)
Ela is 6 and as much as she loves reading and writing Maths it's a different story.
And you know what, I can't blame her.
Her fingers of both hands just wasn't enough any more to deal with the bigger numbers.
After they've finished Grzegorz said
"I think we will need to get an abacus".

Great, I though.
A new need means a new DIY challenge to me :)
It's just no way I'm going to buy it.
As usual I was trying to think of stuff I have and could reuse to this project.
Having in mind a classic modern look of an abacus in my head, and on my laptop screen I searched our flat.
By the way, here is some interesting read about abacus for you ;)

So I had this lovely glossy picture frame which I dropped in the middle of refurbishment loosing the glass and just couldn't throw it away.
It's been waiting in my draw for about a year and now it's the time!

These are all materials I use:
- an old frame
- 10 bamboo skewers
- 100 acrylic pony beads

First I decided to paint the bamboo skewers white, I'm fussy ;)
Beside the paint will keep skewers neat for longer.
I use two coats of acrylic paint...

and clear nail polish after for a nice glossy finish.

Next I removed all unnecessary metal parts at the back of the frame. 

Then I placed all the skewers inside the frame edge and marked where to stick them later.
Bare in mind I had to trim the ends a bit, they were too long.

Next was a fun part of grouping all 100 beads into 10 for each 10 skewers.

How pretty :)

I then stick the skewers using hot glue...

After glue dried I applied some more on the top of it.

         Rudzia our cat approved :)

I only needed to attach the back of the frame.
I listened to my "What if" husband and didn't attach it with a hot glue as planned.

"What if Ela brakes one of  the skewers, think of easy removing in case"
So I did :)

I secured it with a white insulation tape instead.Nice and neat, and easy to remove:)

Ta dam!

Ela gets very excited when back from school...

At first she played with it then were counting :)

It does look stylish too :)

Ela even sang a song where you can hear a nice sound of the colourful beads,
here is the video
The next day she did some Maths again, she found it so much easier with her abacus now and what's most important
                                                FUN :)