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| What on Earth are Paper Beads?
You may have heard of paper beads, but not like the paper beads Louisa Kim makes! Traditionally, paper beads were made from colorful pages of old magazines. However, those beads did not hold up very well against wear and tear; especially against water. After years of experimentation, Louisa and the Paper Bead Company have created amazing paper beads that are beautiful, colorful, durable, and waterproof. All in all, there are over 17 steps in the process which makes these beads, Louisa has allowed us to reproduce some of the steps here so you can see how they are made!
1: The first step of the process is selecting pages from magazines and cutting them into triangular strips with a ruler and a sharp blade.
|
 Shamrocks
for St. Patrick's Day!
Shamrocks are easy to make in time for St. Patrick's Day on March 17th! Start
out with some green paper and cut three heart shapes. The hearts
don't need to be What
can you do with shamrocks once you make them? Try using really big
hearts and glue them to a piece of white paper for a door decoration.
Make smaller hearts and then small shamrocks to decorate notes and cards
for friends!
Hey Kids! We still want your drawings and we'll even send you free stickers when you mail in your drawings! Click here for details!
Written by Carolyn S. Nehring, The Head Bead, Eclectic Etc., Inc. Beads & Supplies and publisher of Etcetera. |
Would you
like to submit to Etcetera? Do you have a craft or tip you would
like to share?
webzine@eebeads.com
2: The paper strip is then placed on an electric
drill device that has a special spinning needle placed in the chuck.
This special needle catches the wide end of the paper strip and allows
the paper to be rolled.
3: At the end of the rolling a dab of glue is placed
on the tip of the paper to keep the bead from unraveling. A bead
is thus created!
4: Rolled beads are then placed onto wire rods
in preparation for the next step.
5:
The last step of the process is treating the beads with "cold glaze"
to harden and waterproof as well as colorize them, somewhat like hot ceramic
glaze.
6: The result is amazing beads that look similar
to glass, stone, wood, shell, or ceramic; but distinctly "paper beadish".
Especially when you can read parts of letters or words on the beads.
The most artistic part of the process is the complex task of coloring the
beads with paints, pigments, dyes and powders.
exactly
the same, but they should be about the same size. Arrange your hearts
as shown in the picture to the left so they make a shamrock! Use
a scrap of left over paper for the stem.