Wearing a jumble of recycled paper beads on my wrist the other day, the thought occurred to me that while making paper beads from recycled magazine pages is nice, why not use other recycled materials and make the beads a bit more elegant?
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| Paper bead bracelet made from recycled magazine pages. Nice but ho-hum. |
Ironically, in the recycled world stepping up the elegance means shifting from glossy, multicolor magazine pages to more understated paper bags and gum wrappers. The result is a bracelet that looks exotic, serves as a more upscale accessory, and would be the perfect accompaniment to the classic little black dress.
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| The elegance of brown paper bags and gum wrappers. |
For those who have never made paper beads before, the technique can be learned in about two minutes. Cut long, narrow triangles of paper. Roll them up starting from the narrow end towards the wide end. Secure the last bit with a daub of glue stick. Voila - a paper bead. Finish the bead by coating with something like Mod Podge. Put beads on a length of string or twine.
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| Materials |
In this case, after the paper bead was made a small strip of paper from a used gum wrapper was glued around the circumference of the bead before the Mod Podge finish was applied.
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| Close-up of beads |
Very nice - you roll your beads nice and even - I've seen very lopsided beads before...
ReplyDeleteLove the use of brown paper bags with the gum wrapper to add shine! I love paper beads, too, and I'm always looking for new ways to decorate them. Great idea!
ReplyDeletelovely
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