Making Paper Beads

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads

After I’ve made my paper beads roller that I presented yesterday I played around with paper beads a little more.

I prefer the tube beads anyway (marginally ;-)) and after having seen the paper bead designer I thought: ‘Yes, a little bit of colour is enough, you can’t see the rest anyway.’

So I quickly made me some doodle paper beads ;-)

And that’s what you do:

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
First I took two sheets of plain printer paper and simply doodled at one side with a blue ballpoint pen.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
Then I cut the sheets in strips of the same width…

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
… and rolled my paper strips with my nifty paper bead roller in a wonderful short time.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
Of course the hole of the bead is split into two holes, too, because my bead roller consists of two halves.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
I ‘stirred’ the hole again with a toothpick so that only one big hole remained.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
Somehow I didn’t want to use the glue excess as varnish for the beads, so I used a simple glue stick and covered the beads afterwards with medium gel. Here you can see them drying.
My potted palm got special leave on my balcony for it ;-)

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
Although I find my doodled paper beads beautiful I thought that I would look boring if I string only them, therefore I made some additional easy Peyote beads.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
Looks good, doesn’t it? ;-)
I wasn’t sure yet what I would do with my beads on this photo.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
It became a bracelet in the end. I simply strung the beads on an elastic and hid the knot in a bead.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
And here an ‘action shot’ ;-)
It’s not so easy to take a good photo of your own arm ;-))

 

After I had finished with my doodled paper beads I thought, that this was a great way to make a lot of matching paper beads from advertising flyers.

 

unikatissima Magazine Paper Beads
So I picked an ad with a photo of bed sheets where I liked the clour scheme.

 

unikatissima Magazine Paper Beads
Then I measured the circumference of my doodled paper beads with a string and cut strips from the ad a little broader than necessary.

 

unikatissima Magazine Paper Beads
I glued the strips from the ad at one side of a plain printer paper sheet and cut the resulting papers in (in this case) 1 cm broad strips, because I wanted to have little beads.

 

unikatissima Magazine Paper Beads
I glued some patches from the rest of my ad on details that I didn’t like, they won’t to be seen on the bead.

 

unikatissima Magazine Paper Beads
Here my beads are drying on a wire because I cut about 80 paper strips and I don’t have enough toothpicks or plants for the drying process ;-)
This time I used a water-based craft glue that glues fast but dries slowly.
This is great because I could varnish my beads easily with the excess of the glue which made them shine and when my fingers eventually got sticky I could wash the glue easily away with water.

 

unikatissima Magazine Paper Beads
I have not yet finished, but I find my paper beads beautiful, a little bit like made from Jade.
We will see what they will become :)

 


Links:
Paper Bead Designer

Peyote Bead (Beaded Bead)

Here at unikatissima:
Paper Beads Roller
Entries containing the words ‘paper’ and ‘bead’

Paper Beads Roller

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller

In a sense I always found paper beads great, but in another sense it always makes (made! ;-)) such a mess, so that I didn’t often made some.
Then I found the paper bead purses (ooooh…). (The link doesn’t work no more, look instead for the Google image search result for ‘paper bead purse’.)
And on the website of the paper bead purse designer I found a video showing how to use a paper beads roller that you can buy at her website (this link doesn’t work neither, but there’s still the video).
Great idea!
She also describes very good how to apply the glue and how to use the glue excess as varnish for the bead.

A little more research found me an instruction on how to build a self-made paper beads roller.
Another great idea! ;-))

I wasn’t sure whether I want to make sooo many paper beads and additionally I thought that I don’t need no crank, so I simply put everything together and the result is my spontaneously made paper beads roller ;-)

And that’s what you do:

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
Cut your paper strips for the beads (I used a page from a travel brochure) and take two big needles, two toothpicks (they have to be smooth!) or – as I did – two little metal skewers.

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
Join both needles (toothpicks, skewers…).
It would be enough to wrap some tape around, but I didn’t want to become my skewers sticky after taking away the tape, therefore I wrapped a broad strip of paper around and taped that.

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
Slip the end of a paper strip between both skewers (if you use triangular ones, slip in the broad end) and begin to wrap on the bead.
On the photo you can see the paper strip that holds together my skewers.

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
That’s how it looks shortly before you’re finished with wrapping.
You can’t see no glue on this photo because I can’t wrap with one hand and take photos with the other – at least not without dripping glue everywhere ;-)

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
When your bead is done you can easily remove it.

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
I was amazed at how fast and easy everything worked and I had much less mess than before ;-)

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
The hole of the bead is split into two holes because my bead roller consists of two halves.

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
I then simply ‘stirred’ the hole with a toothpick so that only one big hole remained ;-)
(By the way, the instruction for this bead is scheduled for tomorrow ;-))

 

Have fun wrapping paper beads! :))
and if you want to try some other bead shapes check out the Paper University.


Links:
Paper Bead Purses
The link doesn’t work no more, look instead for the Google image search result for ‘paper bead purse’.
Paper Beads Roller Video
Paper Beads Roller Video
Self-made Bead Roller (How to use a bead roller) => scroll down to ‘Hand Made Bead Roller’

Different Paper Bead Shapes (Recycled Paper Beads)

Google search result for ‘paper bead howto’
Google image search result for ‘paper bead howto’
Google search result for ‘Papierperle Anleitung’
Google image search result for ‘Papierperle Anleitung’

Here at unikatissima: Entries containing the words ‘paper’ and ‘bead’

What Can You Do With Filet Crochet/Cross Stitch Embroidery Charts?

unikatissima Two-coloured Chart (click to enlarge)

Recently something took me and I thought that you can use those two-coloured charts which are usually associated with filet crochet or cross stitch for a loooot of other techniques, too.
I had this idea already before, in my entries about intarsia knitting, the cross stitch heart, the beaded square stitch heart and the polymer clay letter cane.

On the photo you see some letters worked in different techniques (I’m working on letter charts at the moment ;-)):
'u' - Knit-Purl Knitting, each X is a purl stitch
'n' - Fair Isle Knitting, each X is a white stitch
'i' - Sequins Embroidery, each X is a sequin
'k' - Tapestry Crochet, each X is a white stitch
'a' - Filet Crochet, each X is a filled filet crochet square
't' - Cross Stitch Embroidery on paper, each X is a black cross stitch
'i' - Loom Beading, each X is a black bead
's' - Stamping with square stamps, each X is a black square stamp
's' - Illusion Knitting, each X is a black stitch over two rows
'i' - Crochet Yoyo’s, each X is a white crochet circle from dc’s
'm' - Inverted Filet Crochet, each X is a empty filet crochet square
'a' - Macramée/Friendship Bracelet, each X is a white knot

But then I came up with more techniques and if you still have more ideas I’d be glad if you wrote a comment about.
I added for every technique what would be a square of the chart.
Please remember: Not all ‘units’ are square so that the result can look quite different from the chart!

Knitting

Crochet

  • Tapestry Crochet – 1 stitch
  • Filet Crochet – 1 filet square (cross = filled square)
  • Inverted Filet Crochet – 1 filet square (cross = empty square)
  • Crochet Yoyo’s – 1 Crochet Yoyo, viz. a crochet circle from dc’s

Beading

Embroidery

Knotting

Weaving

Sewing

  • Patchwork/Quilting – e.g. 1 patchwork square
  • Yoyo’s – 1 Yoyo
  • Fabric Origami – 1 fabric origami square

Other

By the way I found an blog entry of an embroiderer who thought about the same subject and has more ideas.


Links:
Double Knitting
Picture for sequin embroidery (scroll down to about the middle)
Description of French Knot
Heather’s Friendship Bracelets – Alphabet Patterns
Geometric stitching
Google image search result for ‘yoyo blanket’
Google image search result for ‘ministeck’

Here at unikatissima:
Celtic Cross Stitch Generator
Heart Template (at Beaded Square Stitch Heart)

Patchwork Knitting
Bead Knitting
Illusion knit

Tapestry Crochet
Beautiful Filet Crochet Patterns

Loom Woven Bead Bracelet
Beaded Square Stitch Heart
Bead Knitting
Freeform Bead Embroidery
Bead embroidered Paisleys

Friendship Bracelet
Crazy Daisies
Crazy Daisies II

Tablet or Card Weaving

YoYo Pin
Fabric Origami

Mosaic Table Light (Glass Paint)
Polymer Clay Letter Cane
Mosaic from Plaster
Eraser Stamps

Bauble – Knitted Bead Cuff

unikatissima Bauble.jpg

I found at knitty the instruction for the knitted bead cuff ‘Bauble’ and really liked it.
Therefore I wanted to knit at least a bit to see how it looks.
Because I don’t have any bigger beads at the moment I used some left over paper beads.
But I didn’t manage to knit the bead string at all.
I really must try it again when I’m a little more untroubled because I really find Bauble beautiful!


Links:
At knitty: Bauble

Here at unikatissima: Paper Beads

Paper Bead Bracelet

Paper Bead Bracelet

Once I saw the beautiful paper bead jewelry at newspaperjewelry.com and was stunned. Then I found a tutorial on how to make a paper bead bracelet at craftster.org with some really good ideas, e.g. to fix the paper beads with hair pins or to coat everything with modpodge.
Just another item on one of my to-do-lists ;-)


Links:
craftster.org: My preferred craft forum
Paper Bead Bracelet

newspaperjewelry.com: Beautiful paper beads jewelry

Paper Beads

Paper Beads

I always loved paper beads, but never knew what to do with them. Then one day I created an artist book (more to follow in a later entry) and – eureka! – I found a use for those paper beads: I wanted to use them on the fibers embellishing the spine of my book (see photo). For those beads I used an advertisement flyer from a furniture dealer with lots of sofas in matching colours. They just had the right size for the beads ;-)
To make the beads I used those instructions on how to make paper and fabric beads.
It can also be used to make the fabric beads I mentioned before.
Later on I found an entry at craftster: A bowl made out of paper beads! I stood there in awe!
But I think that I never will make such a bowl – it’s all a question of having or not having patience ;-)


Links:
Instructions on how to make paper and fabric beads

craftster.org: A website with sooo many craft ideas, inspirations and tutorials
A bowl made out of paper beads

Here at unikatissima:
Making Fabric Beads

Miniature 3-D Star

Miniature 3-D Star

I found (and enjoyed ;-)) this article at craftster and then remembered, that I once have seen an instruction on how to fold those little stars how to fold those little stars (the link isn’t available no more).
I tried it once but again my fingers didn’t worked the way I asked them ;-) This time it were the stars that looked clumsy ;-)


Links:
craftster.org: A giant craftsters community
Mini Star Bracelet (original topic title: “It’s Britney Bitch ;)”)