Paper beads – a family fun jewellery making project
As it is school holiday time so we are sharing a family friendly jewellery project that can be made with household items – rolled paper beads.
These are fun project which don’t require many tools and one you have the basic technique you can experiment with different papers, colours and sizes.
Paper beads are fun and colourful and can be created from a range of paper. The beads here were made using papercraft sheets that came free with a craft magazine.
These earrings are made from the pages of a knitting magazine
Materials
Coloured paper – paper craft paper, origami paper, magazine pages, wrapping paper.
Pencil
Ruler
Scissors or craft knife
PVA glue
Cocktail sticks
Step 1
On the reverse of your paper rule three horizontal lines at 1cm, 9cm and 10cm from the top edge. Then rule vertical lines at 1cm intervals to create a grid.
Step 2
Rule a diagonal line from the edge of the paper and the 1cm line to 1cm in on the 9cm line, then from the 2cm mark on the 1cm line to the 3cm mark on the 9cm line. Continue creating parallel diagonal lines along your grid and then complete your triangles with diagonal lines in the other direction.
You will have created two rows of triangles with a straight tab on the end of each. We’ve shaded a couple here to show the shape.
Step 3
Cut out your triangles. In this case your finished beads will be 2cm long but you can make them longer with more spacing between the vertical lines on your grid. If you want very fat beads, make the triangles longer.
Step 4
Coat the wrongside of a triangle with PVA glue leaving about 0.75cm of the “tab” without glue so that your bead doesn’t stick to the cocktail stick in the next step.
Step 5
Roll the unglued end of your triangle around a cocktail stick.
Step 6
Keep rolling until your whole triangle is wrapped round the stick, wiping away excess glue as you go. With practice you’ll be able to roll by putting pressure on the cocktail stick on each side of the bead.
Step 7
Allow each bead to dry for a few minutes and then loosen on the cocktail stick. Allow the beads to dry completely – you may need to dab glue under the points on some beads tomake sure they are stuck properly – and then they are ready to use. You can also varnish them with nail varnish or wood varnish
You can find lots of jewellery making projects on our website.