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Thursday, December 22, 2011

Paper Beads!

I finally received my Diamond Glaze in the mailbox yesterday (actually I had to go to the post office to get the package, but wha-evah :P). I have been planning on making some paper beads since I saw some tutorials on YouTube and that's why I bought some Diamond Glaze :).
To those that doesn't know what Diamond Glaze is, it's a sort of glue that crystallizes the surface they are applied to. It can also be used for some book scrapping or whatever that includes paper. It can be replaced as resin if you want to cover up some pictures or photos in a jewelry setting, since when it's dry it also creates a dome effect.

The tutorials I first saw only showed how to make the beads, and not the strips so I were slightly confused and my brain doesn't really work at the moment with measuring and figuring out stuff where I have to calculate a bunch of shite, lol.
So later I came across this awesome tutorial that showed the whole process from a blank paper to the finish product.
The tutorial is made by "Beyond Bracelet" and can be accessed by clicking here.
She also show how to color the beads yourself if you want any specific color scheme for the paper beads.

For my very first paper beads I decided on recycling. Instead of using fresh white paper I snatched a commercial magazine we've received in the mail some time ago. Then I picked out a page where I liked the colors. My first paper beads ended up being about 2.5cm (1 inch).
After that I wanted to make some that would be smaller. Again I chose to work with the same magazine, I just chose a different page with a different color setting. These ended up being 1.5cm (15mm).

After those, I decided on experimenting a little. I took another commercial magazine, one that was thinner and measured out the size I wanted on the front cover. Then I cut straight through the whole thing. I let each stripe of this magazine still stick together since I wanted to try making some really thick paper beads from them.
The result ended up exactly as I wanted it, and I actually ended up making two of the same.


So what to make with paper beads?

I guess you can do some stringing necklaces or bracelet with 'em. I suppose that you'll also feel a bit awesome, specially if you're using old magazines or whatever that would normally go to the trash, since making paper beads is kinda recycling, lawl.
I decided on using the first beads for a simple RAW bracelet with a toggle clasp, crimps, 2 4mm bicones and some 9/0 seed beads. I tried using 11/0 seed beads at first, but the holes in the paper beads were too big and the beads would just end up inside of 'em.

With the two thick paper beads I made, I made a pair of earrings using some 4mm fire polished glass beads in Capri Blue above and below the paper bead since the head of the head-pin was too small.

Next thing I want to try is coloring my own beads from scratch, but I'll post that as soon as they are done, and when I have some more pretty daylight to work with for photos :)

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