The Paper Bead Journey

It all began with a simple post from my friend, Nicole. Once she posted about paper beads, I had to google them. I saw a facebook page link she put up to Paper Beads.  One of the first tutorials I found described using old newspapers and magazines to create paper beads.  This is my journey so far:

These ^ are my first paper beads. They are a bit too long, too narrow, and even though they have uber cool colors, I really won't use them for anything. I actually threw them away. The original plan was to make a bracelet out of them. I scrapped that fairly quickly and tried to find tutorials for usable beads that were pretty as well.

Thus, these ^ were born.  This became an addiction. These are made of scrapbook paper and are measured neatly with a ruler.  I plan to use them along with some similar colors for a multi-strand necklace. I want to make a dragon pendant to go on the necklaces I make with these beads.

So Addicted!!! 

Between calls at work, this is what I spent my time doing. I perfected a good drying "rack" out of a simple piece of unbaked scrap polymer clay. I use cotton swab plastic sticks with slits cut in them to roll the beads and to dry them. Multiple layers of glue are used, then on the blue ones I tossed on some sparkle acrylic paint. A layer of acrylic topcoat has been used for the glossy sealant. Unfortunately, it also smells bad when you first use it. It dries fine, however. I did get permission from most of my coworkers in the immediate vicinity first, though. This did result in an amusing facebook post. Thanks, Chris.  You're great!  :)

In the end...(Linkin Park, wonderful song) I've finished with some beads that I kind of like. I'm sort of iffy on how I created some of them. However, the blue ones are mostly complete. I have a few more to roll and gloss. I might save all of the glossing for when I'm at home, though.

The End of this post, but not of this journey. I did mention addiction, right?