Road atlas paper beads and blue goldstone highway beads make up this Road Trip Necklace. This is my first set of paper beads and I can’t wait to make more!
I love beads and beading and beaded things. From sewing seed beads on my Keds in the 80s to stringing plastic beads on leather cord in high school to making (another example), I love doing stuff with beads. My bead collection has been growing for about 25 years. About 10 years ago, I discovered working with wire, made a ton of earrings and collected many many many many more beads and beading supplies.
In all of that time, I haven’t used or made paper beads. I have always been slightly intrigued by paper beads. You can just make them at home. Out of things you were going to throw away. Old newspapers, magazines, junk mail, etc. And you can make as many as you want. To me, this seemed to mean that you could never run out of beads. Who doesn’t always have paper to dispose of?
Wanderlust as bead inspiration
I’d been trying to decide where to start in making some paper beads and kept coming back to travel brochures. Gazing longingly at the pictures of trees, mountains, waterfalls, and the ocean, I was thinking about travel-themed beads. Ok, really I was thinking about travel. The travel brochure photographs I have didn’t lend themselves to the paper beads I was looking for. (The pictures were too big.) As part of this travel itch, I’ve been particularly drawn to maps lately, too. Then it dawned on me. I dug out the old road atlases I acquired at a garage sale and started cutting up the state of Washington.
What worked in making the road atlas paper beads
Measuring the paper
I used a quilting ruler and marked lines for the tube beads .25” apart. Using the same ruler, I marked angles on the paper, starting with a 30° angle and then bisected them a few times until it looked like the size I wanted. I did this so the paper would slope at the same angle on both sides and roll up evenly.
Cutting along the lines I marked
This seems like a ridiculous thing to mention, but all too often, I throw caution to the wind and just cut. Fabric, yarn, cards, my hair. This was a time when just cutting didn’t work as well as carefully cutting along the marked lines.
Winding a little before beginning to glue
I wound about a round and a half of the paper around a toothpick and then applied glue to the rest of the paper. This kept the bead from sticking to the toothpick and made it easier to handle the paper, toothpick and glue all at the same time.
Using a glue stick
I tried a few other glue options before realizing that for me, glue stick works best. It’s easy to handle, doesn’t make the paper soggy, sticks well, and doesn’t run or drip. Apply the glue to the inside of the paper before you roll it up on the rest of the paper already started around the toothpick. The paper will stick to the paper, but no glue sticks to the toothpick.
Making a floral foam toothpick stand.
After winding the gluesticked paper around toothpicks, I stood the toothpicks in floral foam to dry/set. When I used wet glue to stick the beads, the floral foam was even more helpful. Still, it was nice to have a place to stick them to dry.
Stringing paper beads on crochet cotton.
After the beads were dry/set, I strung them on crochet cotton to get them ready for glazing. It’s easier to pull the beads from a string that is smaller than the bead opening than it is to pull them from a toothpick the same size as the bead opening.
Glazing with Perfect Paper Adhesive Gloss.
This gloss worked really well compared to the other options I tried. I diluted it with a tiny bit of water (somewhere around 3 parts glue 1 part water). I put the whole string of beads into the gloss and poked it around with a paintbrush. After making sure the glaze covered the beads, I pulled the string out and tied it to a metal mesh basket. Because I didn’t want the beads to stick together, I separated them using the same paintbrush.
Having Patience.
Surprisingly, it took some effort to keep the paper straight as I rolled it up on the toothpick. When I just rolled it, the bead was crooked with uneven edges. This was a tad more difficult than I had anticipated. I made a bunch of test beads and when I felt like I had the hang of it, I used my atlas pieces. Further, waiting for glue and glaze coats to dry before doing the next step takes regular old crafting patience.
What did not work for making paper beads
Just diving in with scissors. That did not work. If you want the edges to look remotely lined up, you’ll want to cut straight lines. I wound several messy beads and was unhappy with how they looked.
Just cutting at a random angle. There might be some cool effects to achieve by cutting your paper at random angles before winding it around the toothpick, but I did not achieve them. They ended up looking catawampus and wobbly.
Liquid glue diluted with water. I started with school glue and added a bit of water to it. This did not work. The paper got quite soggy, and I kept getting the beads stuck to the toothpick. Seriously, they wouldn’t come off when they were dry. I had to throw them away.
Glazing with school glue. Again, the beads got too soggy and the glue got too runny.
Making the Road Trip Necklace
My original vision included making paper beads with pictures of highways too so I could create a road trip necklace. None of those beads worked out. I made some but you couldn’t really tell they were roads. The really nice pictures of highways in my travel brochures were not the right size or shape for making beads. I gave up on the road idea and found some black beads in my bead collection. Then I had the idea of turning them into highway beads with the careful application of yellow paint for center lines.
The black beads are blue goldstone, so they are not exactly black but close enough. I painted yellow stripes on them to resemble a highway using regular acrylic craft paint and a toothpick. I’m sure the paint would wash right off if the necklace got wet, so I would do things a little differently if I was making jewelry to give away or sell. The painted beads look a little silly, but I like that it adds a little bit of extra fun to the piece. I put 2 highway beads and an atlas paper bead on a 20 gauge eye pin and created another eye at the other end and joined each section at the eyes.
The back of the necklace is made from unpainted blue goldstone and small blue glass beads, put together in much the same way. (Except that the opening of the blue beads was too small for the 20 gauge eye pins, so I had to make some new ones from some 22 gauge wire I had.). I finished the necklace by attaching a magnetic clasp with a jump ring to the last eye on each side.
Road Trip and Paper Bead Discussion
What a fun introduction to paper beads!! I will definitely be making more in the future. We have a road trip coming up and I am looking forward to wearing this necklace as we start an adventure! (I’ll post pictures!) What kinds of adventures have you had making paper beads? Any favorite papers? What do you use for glues and for glazing? I would love to read about your experiences in the comments!
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