Family Fun

My son Nathan, who's 11, has had an on-again, off-again relationship with my paper bead creation. Sometimes he acts like he's too cool to even notice what I'm doing. At other times, he's been handing my website address to his art teacher and talking me up like I'm the next big thing. So most of the time, I let him decide whether or not I'll share what I've been up to.

The last two days, though, it's been on-again. He's decided he wants to try to make beads too. And he quickly discovered (imagine that!) that making paper beads is a lot harder than it looks. Before he got frustrated and walked away, though, he made some really funky beads. And it got me thinking.

Maybe I'm being a little TOO careful about making sure my cut lines are straight. Maybe I'm taking too much time lining everything up to end up with a smoothly tapered bead. It is, of course, important to be able to do that. And for many bead sets, I want a uniform product at the end. But I could picture a really cool necklace made from Nathan's funky, misshapen beads.

I'm thinking about experimenting with more randomness. Maybe I'll just tear some paper strips and see what kind of beads those make. Or maybe I'll roll with abandon and not worry if my paper ends up in an X at the end. After all, what is the point of art if it's not uniqueness and experimentation?

Waves on the Ocean

I love these blue and white beads I made--they make me think of ocean waves ebbing and waning. The idea actually came to me while watching a sunset, but with the colors I chose they ended up being more ocean-y than sunset-y. Maybe I'll make sunset beads another day.

I made these by starting with a blank white sheet of paper. I used blue acrylic paint and and artist's sponge for painting. I started at the top edge of the paper and sponge painted heavily, making a dark blue. As I moved down the paper, I used a lighter hand with the sponge so it the color gradually lightened. It was nearly white by the bottom edge.

I cut the paper into traditional, one-inch tapered triangles. Since that cutting method alternates which side of the paper is the base, half my triangles were dark blue on the wide side and light blue at the tip, while the other half were the other way around.

As I rolled the beads, half of them came out dark blue at the edges, lightening toward the middle. The other half were light blue at the edges and darkened toward the middle. I think it's a really neat effect. I'm looking forward to trying it with other color combinations.

Art Paper Beads

I thought I'd write a bit about why I call my creations art paper beads instead of just paper beads. Many people make paper beads from recycled magazine pages or other papers they have lying around. That makes funky beads, but it's not what I'm interested in. I see creating my paper beads as more of an artistic endeavor.

I start by choosing a base paper. This is often a sheet of scrapbook paper I find interesting, but not always. I made some beads yesterday from pages of a Latin dictionary (pictures eventually forthcoming!), and I bought some sheet music to make beads from. I do use magazine pages sometimes, but they're carefully chosen for color.

For most of my paper beads, I alter the base paper. Sometimes I add line drawings with markers. Sometimes I do a watercolor wash over the whole paper. Sometimes I combine different papers into one bead.

At that point, I cut the paper into strips and continue as you would for any paper bead. I'll write a how-to about that another day. But by the time I start to turn the paper into a bead, I've already begun turning it into a work of art. I may begin with found paper, but it's not random. It's carefully chosen and altered for its artistic value.

That's why I make a distinction between paper beads and my art paper beads.

Seeing Spots

I love these white polka-dot beads I made last night. I did these with white polka-dotted scrapbook paper (not the cardstock weight!)cut into one-inch strips. I tapered the strips by 1/4 inch on each side, so the wide end is one inch and the narrow end is 1/2 inch.

I rolled the beads on coffee stirrers. That was a new experiment for me, and I liked the way it came out. I put a bit of polycrylic on the stirrer, then rolled the bead. I coated the last inch with polycrylic before I finished rolling, then gave the whole thing a coat and stuck the stirrer into a styrofoam block for drying.

Here's the fun part--once the first coat of polycrylic was dry, I used a thin glaze of metallic silver paint over the whole bead. I let that dry, then gave the bead a second coat of polycrylic. I let that dry overnight.

This morning I cut off the ends of the coffee stirrers, leaving the part glued inside the bead there for stability. I sanded any rough spots on the edges and used a few dabs more polycrylic on the newly exposed ends.

These beads would look great strung with black spacer beads and worn with a black-and-white outfit. They're fun and funky, and the silver glaze gives them just a bit of bling!