Doing My ThRRRees creating paper beads

Can you recognize the waste material I have used in creating these?



These are beads made up of paper from:

1) centre piece of used up toilet roll
2) box from a birthday cake
3) corrugated cardboard from a packaging
4) empty box from a cough syrup
5) a box from McDonald's takeaway

The strings are raffia used to tie my cartons of eggs and ribbons taken off gift boxes.

Once you have all the bits and pieces required, you can start creating. Here are the steps:

1) Select colourful junk mail printed on thicker paper. These are usually brochure advertising housing development or advertisement in A5 size.
2) Cut into strips of 2cm by 6 to 8cm in length.
3) Draw a line across from one point of the strip to the other point diagonally opposite.
4) Cut along the diagonal line to form 2 triangles with right angles.
5) Place a toothpick to the broad end side of the triangle and roll it up till the pointed end.
6) Use glue to stick pointed end to the side of the bead formed.

Beads can be use to decorate a plain photo frame by gluing it to the frame. If you would like to experiment by using different kind of material to create your beads, you will find "This to That" glue advice website very useful.

Once you have created your beads, you can string them onto a raffia string or ribbon, one after another to form a beaded rope. Make it long enough to hang around the neck and your daughter will no longer be playing with your jewellery.

Make as many of these bead ropes as you can and you can create a room separator or curtain. You can make it interesting by varying the sizes of the beads. To complete it,

1) Tie something cute and heavy at the end to add load to the beaded ropes. These can be your collection of dangles you have been buying for your key chains or bags or mobile phones.
2) Measure the width of the door or window using a raffia string.
3) Add about 15cm in length for each end for tying up to the top of the door or window.
4) Tie beaded ropes to the raffia string side by side till it covered the full width of the door or window.
5) Screw in a hook at both sides of the door or window
6) Tie the ends of the rows of beaded curtain onto each hook so that it hang across the door or window.

By creating my own paper beads, I have

1) reduced waste paper from ending up in the landfills
2) re-used waste paper to create something different
3) recycled my knowledge of creating handmade jewellery by exploring using waste materials and creating different kind of things.

Explore and see what you can reduce, re-use and recycle in your life.