First of all, I need to give credit where credit is due. This is in no way my own project as I saw the idea in Craft magazine. This also means I don’t want to give a blow-by-blow account of how I made my awesome bracelet because that wouldn’t be fair to the freaky-cool people who publish Craft. However, the idea for paper beads has been around “forever” according to my once-upon-a-time-semi-hippie-parents so I don’t feel quite so guilty sharing a few of the finer points.
In the interest of my new resolution to use what I have on hand and save myself some money I’ve been scouring magazines and the net for cool projects. This one definitely fit the bill! The black and white beads are made from a magazine on its way to the recycling bin, the red beads were leftovers from a previous project and the wire, jump rings and clasp are from my stash.
I chose all black and white images for the paper I needed and cut strips with a ruler and X-acto knife. Then I cut the strips on the diagonal to get the cool swirl effect on the beads and create some visual interest. The beads were rolled around a skewer and glued. To give them a little extra sheen I sprayed them with some clear spray paint before threading them onto black wire lengths with the red beads. The black wire ends were looped closed and attached to each other with jump rings.
Surprisingly the bracelet held up through an entire day at work. I use a mouse all day and I was so sure that the beads would be torn and bent or at least soggy from the rainy hike to and from my car, but they held up beautifully.
Obviously my technique needs a little tweaking, but I’m rather happy with the result of an evening’s work.
-Lyzard
