"A blog dedicated to the art of making paper beads & paper bead jewelry...by Janice Mae"
Big and Beautiful Paper Beads
One of the new shapes that my sister Joann came up with is big round paper beads 14-16mm in size. One bead is a total of 9 magazine pages spread open and tightly rolled by hand. Even though it’s made out of paper the beads feels substantial and weighty. I wish I could show you all the different colors, they truly look like marbles with swirls of different colors.
Beautiful hues of orange….
Blues and white opals
Fiesta colors!
Here’s a basic beading how-to:
Cleo’s Paper Bead Bracelet
To me, this looks like what a modern Cleopatra will have on her wrist, a bracelet made up of recycled magazines. I have a penchant for taking inexpensive jewelry apart and replacing them with paper beads. I love the idea of turning ordinary to extraordinary. I call this Cleo’s Bracelet because the little triangle sections looks like little pyramids. We replace the wood beads in the original bracelet with little round paper beads, Kayla did a good job of matching the colors.
The bracelet with the wood beads in the middle had a metal finding that can hold six strands.
The round paper beads we used has such a nice sky blue color with swirls of tan…..
Here it is on the wrist!
Another day of turning ordinary to extraordinary.
Ultra Long Paper Bead Necklace
Kayla made this necklace to be extra long, about 52 inches so it can be worn doubled up or just as it is. These are made with the longest paper bead tube that we have, 1 1/4 inch long and 1/4 inch wide. They are just perfect for these extra long necklace. I imagine wearing these with just a simple silver hoop earrings to go with the silver links.
Here it is worn long, like this. You can mix this with other silver chains that you may have……
We put a clasp on it so it can also be worn layered
Another day of taking the ordinary to extraordinary!
What have you done with paper beads today?
Convertibe Eyeglass/Badge Holder
We have made eye glass holders in the past using a set of eye glass findings to hold your eye glasses, like this one:
I find that the paper beads really make nice eye glass holders because they are light and colorful. Here is another way of using paper beads to make eye glass/badge holder that can also double up as just a long necklace or a choker, like this one:
Diamond shaped paper beads were connected to each other using double wire wrap.
A simple beading wire was used to string medium sized olive shape paper beads to make this eye glass/badge holder that can also be worn as a necklace and as a choker.
A simple circle link finding in gold, silver or copper makes a nice accent
Paper Beaded Pencil Holder
This is another project that can be a nice accent to your desk or work place. All you need is an empty soup can (I’m sure you have one in your recycle bin), paper beads and glue gun. I used olive shaped paper beads for a 12 oz. empty can of Campbell’ s Soup. This is a very easy project, you just need to be careful when using a hot glue gun.
Any empty can will do, I find this size is just perfect to hold my colored pencils.
I found it easier to first string the paper beads (you can add seed beads in between) on a craft wire and then glue them in an east west direction.
I used to store my colored pencils in a ziplock bag, nothing wrong with that. This one looks prettier though, don’t you think?
Another day of taking ordinary to extraordinary. What have you done with your paper beads today?
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