When you’re done with that magazine, don’t toss it.
Clever crafters today turn pages into pretty: beads, bowls, baskets, photo frames, mirrors and more. It’s all made by rolling strips of shiny magazine paper, junk mail and other paper trash.
Rebecca Douglas, 23, of Lansing, Mich., learned how to roll paper beads as a child living in Namibia, and returned to the skill years later out of financial necessity.
Paper beads can be made out of nearly any paper trash; Douglas prefers to use catalogs and other unsolicited mail.
“It’s my quiet protest against junk mail,” she said.
Douglas also fashions rolled paper into larger objects: a waste basket, a mirror. She snips off spirals from her paper rods to create delicate necklaces, which she sells from her Etsy shop, Reloved Designs, at www.etsy.com.
All of her creations — and instructions for many of them — can be seen on her blog, RelovedDesigns.com. Some were adapted from “The Big-Ass Book of Crafts” by Mark Montano, a designer for TLC’s “While You Were Out.”
Another paper-beading fanatic is Janice Bautista, 52, who owns Aubrey’s Beads shop in Glendora, Calif., and sells beads and jewelry online. She calls herself “the Paper Bead Princess” in the profile at her Etsy store, Janicemae, and posts a new use for paper beads daily on her blog, paperbeads.org.
Bautista is crazy for the colors and shapes of paper beads, but it’s the element of surprise that really grabs her.
“When you’re rolling it, you’ll slowly see the beads come to life,” Bautista says.
Bautista has a sister in the Philippines, an avowed noncrafter who caught the paper-beading bug, then shared it with others. Now the sisters employ about 50 bead-rolling women in Quezon City, and Bautista receives about 200 36-bead strands a month to sell at her shops.
A nonprofit group called BeadforLife, in Boulder, Colo., trains Ugandan women in paper bead-making, then buys their finished jewelry for sale in the United States. The Ugandans learn business and entrepreneurial skills and many launch small businesses in their communities.
The nonprofit has worked with more than 700 women since its 2004 inception, and paid nearly $1 million to its jewelry makers last year.
Get rolling
Supplies: paper, a rolling tool, glue or a glue stick, scissors and a water-based sealant, such as Polycrylic by Minwax.
Rolling tools can be purchased at craft stores or use found items: a coffee stirrer, toothpick, pencil, a tapestry needle, a narrow-size knitting needle, even your finger. The larger the rolling tool, the larger the bead hole will be.
How to: Simply cut a long strip of paper, preferably wider at one end; roll it around the rolling tool (from wider to narrower end); glue it; allow the glue to dry; and seal the bead.
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