Paper Bead Jewelry

Who would’ve thought that from magazine pages I could make my own jewelry? I had no clue until I saw a post describing how to do just that at Hip 2 B Mom.

I loved that this was a craft that I could do at random parts of the day or while watching a show, and if I had to pause to do something else, they are easy to pick right back up…

All you need is a toothpick, a magazine with colorful pictures and a glue stick!

Take a page out of the magazine with fun colors/pictures and cut it into strips. Mine were about 1/2-3/4 of an inch wide. Then cut diagonally from one corner to the other so you have long, skinny triangles.

Have your triangles be different widths at the base so you can get different sized beads.

Take the wide end of the triangle and start wrapping it tightly around the toothpick. Keep wrapping and wrapping, making sure that the paper stays centered in itself as you wrap to get a nice shape. If it starts getting skewed, just slide it around until it’s symmetrical (or to the shape you want it) again.

When you have 1-2 inches left of the point of the triangle, spread some glue on it with your glue stick and keep wrapping so the end is glued down. Hold it for a few seconds to make sure it sticks. At this point, I was able to slide the beads off and let them dry as they were so I could start on new beads. Below you can see what the two widths of my paper triangles looked like when wrapped up:

Once you are done making your beads, you may want to give them a coat of Mod Podge and/or acrylic spray seal to protect your beads. Then you can string them on thread or wire to make cute bracelets, necklaces or other fun jewelry!

 

 

 

 

 

This would be such a fun project to do with your daughters or a group of girls!

I’m linking up to: DIY Project Parade, Market Yourself Monday, Homemaker Monday, Making Monday Marvelous, and Monday Blog Hop.