So Many Paper Beads...So Little Time

My current craft project/obsession is Paper Beads.   What a great craft...the raw material is FREE (when you use junk mail, newspaper inserts, magazine pages, posters).  You can use scrapbook paper, but I go for the free stuff.  I find that I don't look at paper the same way.  The colors catch me, I check the thickness and the feel of the surface.  Then I am hooked.  Flyers, menus, magazines...nothing safe around me.

I keep a bin in my office to throw the paper in.

It is best if the paper is colorful, with no much white space.   These papers are good because they have lots of color, no white borders and little white space in the page.

This page is not good because it is not colorful and has a white border.  The top and bottom show the most on the bead.  Once you make a few beads you will understand.

Next comes cutting the paper.  There are several ways to cut the paper...by hand, freestyle. Or using a cutting board and either a cutting wheel or utility knife.  But my favorite (for now) is a paper cutter.  I can cut several pieces at once. 

I cut triangle strips, with the wide end less than an inch, tapering down to a point.  The length of the paper (and how many sheets you stack together) will determine how fat the bead is.  The wide end will determine the length of the bead.

On to rolling the paper.  I bought a bead roller online, but when I started sharing my love of Paper Beads with others, I came up with a homemade roller using a cotter pin and polymer clay.  Both versions work great.

I stack several cut sheets together to make a bead.  The pieces don't have to be the same size in width or length.  This is where the "art form" comes in.  Sometime it is 3 sheets, sometimes it is 6 sheets.  It depends on the thickness of the paper.  Newpaper ads may take 6 sheets, while magazine pages may take 3 sheets.  I pick the paper with the most colorful tip to be on the top (because this tip ends up making a center band).  When I get close to the end, I put some white glue on all the sheets and complete the wrap.  Pull the bead off the roller and on to the next.

I finish the bead with a glaze.  My current technique is to hand glaze each bead with 2 coats of Mod Podge.  I put the bead on a bamboo skewer and paint a coat of Mod Podge with a brush, put the skewer in the knife holder, wait 30 minutes and repeat.  For a while I was dipping the beads in polyurethane, but I ran out so I switched to the Mod Podge.  I also tried coating with thick embossing powder and melting with a heat gun.  This technique created beautiful beads, but was very time consuming. 

I do a lot of these steps while watching TV, one night cutting, another rolling, another glazing.  Do you think I watch a lot of TV?

So Many Paper Beads...now what?  Paper Beads make nice jewelry.  Pinterest and Etsy have lots of paper bead jewelry for examples.  But paper beads can be used for so much more.  As I showed in my last post, I filled shadow boxes with Paper Beads.

I have strung Paper Beads with glass beads on fishing line and attached the line inside a frame.

I enhanced a wire tree with Paper Beads.

So Many Paper Beads...So Little Time