Paper Beads

There have been pictures of gorgeous paper beads all over the internet and so I had to make some. I'm not going to go into how-to steps as there are lots of good instructions on the web already, such as the instructions on Adrienne Butikofer's blog.

I don't have any fancy tools and did not want to invest in any new tools or abuse my knitting needles. I found inexpensive 36" Wood Dowel Rods at Michaels in the Wood Crafting Dept (here's an example on Amazon) and bought several widths, 1/8", 3/16", 1/4", 5/16" and 3/8". I had my husband cut each dowel rod into 9" pieces.

I cut straight and triangular 11" - 24" long strips in various widths ranging from 1/4" to 1" from scrapbooking paper, brown wrapping paper and magazines. I also used regular printer paper that I printed my own patterns on.

Using a regular Elmer's Glue stick to secure the ends, I rolled each bead around the wood dowel taking care to keep the paper centered. Different dowel rod widths were used to vary the size of the bead holes. The paper bead was removed from the wood dowel prior to painting, glazing or embossing. The rolled beads were placed on the thin plastic handles of some cheap paint brushes for finishing as they slid easily off the shiny plastic without sticking.

I did various things with the beads. Some were painted inside and outside (used a toothpick to paint the inside of smaller bead holes). Crackle paint and glitter paint was used on some of the painted beads while other beads were colored with permanent marker. Some beads were coated with a glaze (inside and outside) and other were embossed with UTEE as demonstrated in this YouTube video by sandrahensrud81.

RESULTS

Paper beads look good but are definitely not durable. The biggest issue is moisture as they are not waterproof. The painted beads held up fairly well as acrylic paint plus glaze worked well to seal the paper layers of the bead. The beads embossed with UTEE showed a lot of wear after a few months, became dull and looked rough around the edges of the bead.

In terms of paper, the brown wrapping paper beads were the most durable and the easiest to paint. In the pictures below all the solid, brightly colored beads are made with brown wrapping paper.

Printer paper was the easiest to work with and scrapbooking paper also worked very well. Not surprisingly I found that small scale patterns worked much better than larger scale patterns. The magazine paper was simply too thin, too hard to work with and so I discarded all of those beads.

This is a fun project but I would not use paper beads to create any durable and long lasting jewelry. I think instead, I will try creating some beads out of fabric because fabric is easier to seal and is more durable.

In the picture just below the brown beads were made with brown wrapping paper, decorated with red and black marker lines and then embossed with UTEE.