Reflections on Making Paper Beads

I had read about making paper beads somewhere about 18 months ago and thought it sounded like a cool idea. I used to do lampwork (glass bead making) and gave it up because my hands shake and I got stressed out by working with the torch. I had done lampwork for three years and hoped I would lose my fear of the torch, but I never did--I always felt way too much adrenaline going on while I was working, so it didn't work as a stress-buster, which is what I needed. I thought that making paper beads would be an interesting similar activity and less stressful. I thought it would be fun to be able to pre-pattern the beads with different papers and choose embellishments such as gold or silver thread for them. Then, to be able to use Pearl-Ex or other types of powders for decoration seemed like a fun idea as well.

I bought most of the supplies and set them aside, waiting for inspiration to strike. Well, life got in the way, and I think in the back of my head I was still a little intimidated about working with heat, although let me tell you an embossing tool compared to a torch is like a kitten compared to a tiger! But then I got the new issue of Cloth Paper Scissors and read the paper bead article, and I once again had a desire to give it a try. The completeness of the directions gave me more confidence, too, as I had not been able to find comprehensive directions before. I had never used the heat tool for embossing, you see, so it was a bit of a dilemma.

On Thursday, I sat down with my paper cutter and cut a lot of strips of paper, many different kinds (including watercolor). Most of my strips were one to one and a half inches wide, and about six inches long. Then I sat down in my studio to roll and glue them. That was a challenge because the gel medium I was using kept drying too fast so it was hard to make the end stick. I solved that by adding a little more gel at the end to stick it on. After rolling the base bead, I ripped or cut a shorter, narrower piece of a contrasting paper (or sheet music) to make a center strip. That was easier to do. Finally, after taking a break, I wound silver or gold thread around the center of most of the beads (gluing it down with glue stick).

Then I cleaned off my studio table and set things up for heating and dipping. I took a big roasting pan and lined it with aluminum foil. I dumped a big pile of UTEE in one corner for rolling beads in. I put uncapped containers of different embossing powders in the pan, and dumped a small amount of Pearl-Ex in two different colors in another corner. I got out the embossing pad (which unfortunately was not sticky enough--I ended up returning it to Hobby Lobby later for stickier stuff). Then my daughter and I put masking tape on the ends of the skewers and put some of the beads on them (making sure no wood or tape protruded from the open end). We were ready to begin.

I fired up the heat tool (after attaching the stand so I could put it down if needed), rolled the first bead on the embossing pad, rolled it in the UTEE, and started heating. I was heating just from the center to the outer end, not the whole bead (you do one end at a time). I heated, rolled in UTEE, heated, etc. until the end was well-coated. Then I started rolling or dipping the bead into the powders, heating gently after each time. My daughter helped me by sprinkling stuff on it when I asked her to (because that gives an interesting speckled effect). Each half of a bead took about three to five minutes to do. After doing one end, we kept turning the bead to keep it from dripping; as it cooled, we placed it, skewer still inserted, to rest on the edge of the pan to cool thoroughly. They seemed to need about five minutes to cool. Then we could take them off the skewer, reverse them, and do the other half. In all I think we did twelve beads, though there were more rolled and ready--we got tired after awhile and decided to leave the others for another day.

We did have a few mishaps. The heating element was not well centered in the heating tool and that resulted in some difficulties. I went overboard with the UTEE and got some drips (thus working over the pan was helpful). I touched the hot bead to the edge of a container a couple of times and had to re-melt it and add more UTEE or powder to cover the divot it made. And it was a big mess (which I expected). But overall it was great fun. I will do it again soon. And this time I will make some beads out of BLACK paper! Yeah! That will be gorgeous with gold and silver and sparklies......