We Love How This Family Has Made Wearing Masks Cool With This Adorable Accessory

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, CA — It's the first day of school, but Rancho Santa Margarita mom Brittany Higgins's kitchen table looks more craft-zone than back-to-school breakfast she tells us. Yes, her four kids will be wearing masks at their various elementary and middle schools in the Capistrano Unified School District, but they don't mind.

In fact, they've turned mask-wearing into a fashion statement.

After being home during the coronavirus shutdown, Higgins decided to mimic a mask-lanyard design she saw online for making masks "cool."

"I thought this would be a fun project for us to do together," she tells Patch. Each lanyard chain attaches to a mask loop. They can be dropped around your neck when the mask is not needed, thus reducing lost or discarded masks when they went to the store or out to eat.

Roxanne, their oldest daughter, now in 7th grade, enjoyed the process of busily stringing beads together in unique patterns and color palates. During the shutdown, the kids made more lanyards than they could use. Led by Roxanne, they would go door to door selling the chains, Higgins says.

Each lanyard takes the kids about 15 to 20 minutes to make. Over the summer, they spent a holiday at a Mammoth cabin, stringing beads when they weren't outside enjoying the mountain air. When they returned home, they were back at it, selling their lanyards and buying more beads with their profits to create more.

With her younger sister Holly in tow, the pair would go door to door and come home without any inventory.

"They loved the success and feeling of creating something and then selling it themselves," she said.

Once quarantine lifted and Orange County no longer needed masks, they thought the business was done.

"Sadly, masks are back at school, so we started back up again," she says. Lemons to lemonade, the lanyard idea has also saved a bit of money for them.

"We go through paper masks like crazy," she said. "Kids drop them, or they get dirty on the lunch tables, but with their lanyards, they always come home with their masks—clean and still in their possession!"

Though the kids don't enjoy wearing masks at school, they don't complain much about it.

"They were just so grateful to not be on Zoom school any more that they would have worn pretty much anything," she said. "They say by the end of the day they don't even notice they're wearing (the masks)."

They named their little business "Babes with Beads," and they've made a logo and have taken off selling their chains through local Facebook groups.

The best part about their mask-lanyard sales? Seeing friends and neighbors wearing their creations. "They get so excited to see that," she says. Plus, there is learning how to share the profits.

"They divide their profits up between them and pay us back for the supplies," Higgins says. As for what they're buying with their hard-earned crafting? "So far, it’s been a lot of clothes, jewelry and Barbies. A little lesson on saving also never hurts.

Now, they're even taking customized orders, though Higgins has no plans to sell these for long or set up an Etsy store. There is no need, she says.

"Rancho Santa Margarita is so supportive of the kids and their cute ideas and businesses," plus they're doing their part to keep others safe and fashionable at the same time.

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