Day 14- Made of Magazines

3/10/14

For my piece today I made some paper beads from magazine paper. See the accompanying DIY post on Making Paper Beads if you'd like to try making your own!

I started with magazine paper with some pinks and neutrals. I rolled paper beads in two sizes, but I only ended up using the ones that were about 1.25". To add a bit of glamour I lightly spray painted them gold. I love the effect on the beads because you can see the color and text through the paint but it gives them a great metallic sheen.

I flattened the beads with my fingers and threaded them onto Swarovski head pins. In order to thread the headpins I had to use a pin and needle to open up a hole through the bead. A small awl would be a convenient tool next time.

I used the headpins to affix the beads to two pieces of balsa wood. I filled in the spaces between the paper beads with gold tube beads.

I used the headpins to affix the beads to two pieces of balsa wood. I filled in the spaces between the paper beads with gold tube beads.

I knew I wanted to make a jewelry piece but I decided on a necklace because I was concerned with how delicate the piece would be on the wrist or hand. I thought it would be interesting as a piece that resembled a collar. I think it needs to sit closer to the neck so I may go back in a cut a piece out of the back and add a clasp.

To finish the piece I trimmed the headpins in the back and added another layer of balsa wood to strengthen it. I used an elastic cord with beads for the length of the necklace.

Necklace: Paper, Swarovski headpins, glass beads, elastic cord, balsa wood

I know it's been a lot of necklaces, I promise to change it up tomorrow! I am happy that this piece is very different than anything I've done so far.

xo,
Arielle

DIY for Day 14- Making Paper Beads

3/10/14

Paper beads are easy to make and a great way to use old colorful magazines for your projects.

I like to coordinate the colors of magazine pages that I use with my project. The best tend to be fashion magazines or anything with a lot of images. A page full of words can be fun too, especially if you'd like to paint the beads after making them. I like to use travel magazines for landscape colors, wedding magazines are great for pastels and neutrals, and you can usually get some good full pages of bright colors out of magazines like Real Simple.

Fold your sheet of magazine paper into segments as long as you'd like your beads to be. Cut from bottom right to top left corner of each strip. You can use a ruler and pen to get an exact line, but it doesn't matter if it's perfect so you can also do it by eye if you can get it close enough.

 Start by rolling the strip with the right side out on a small tool like a crochet hook or a small paintbrush. Two things to watch out for here: 1. Be careful not to pull it too tight or it will be very difficult to remove from the tool, and 2. Angle the strip slightly so the center of the triangle is lined up with the center of the bead.

Making sure the point of the triangle is lined up with the center of the bead

Once you have it wrapped twice around, apply a small amount of glue all the way down to the tip of the bead. You don't need to use much; the glue spreads out pretty evenly. You may have to add a small drop at the tip of the triangle if it doesn't stay down.

Wrap 2-3 times and then apply a small amount of glue

Roll the bead until it's complete. Remove from the tool, and if desired you can snip off and triangle points that are sticking out. Often, however, they aren't noticeable and it's not necessary.

When your beads are finished you can use them as is, spray them with a spray lacquer for more shine, spray paint them either completely or just a bit, or apply glue to the outside with a paintbrush and dip them in seed beads.

Paper beads lightly painted with gold spray paint

Have fun!
xo,
Arielle

Day 13- Crocheting On The Go

3/8/14

Please excuse the next two posts for being a little late; I was visiting Boston this weekend and had little time to type. I did bring my crocheting with me though, and did a lot of freestyle stitching.

Last night I began making small crocheted circles with an uncarded, undyed, and handspun yarn that I bought this summer for a few dollars from a woman spinning yarn on her porch in Lincoln, NM (Population 52. Actually.) That pretty much means that the yarn went directly from sheep to yarn without much treatment at all, and that you have to pick out the sticks and thorns from the yarn as you go. But it has its charm, of course.

I made a pile of circles only about 3 stitches deep, and stitched around them with a hand dyed yarn varied in color but that was mostly purple for the section I used. I crocheted all the pieces together to experiment with the shape, but even before I trimmed all the strings and finished it I didn't much like the shape.

I wanted the piece to be rounder and have the circles overlap more. I ended up adding a few more and stitching them together from the back. I made some smaller circles out of a finer yarn (the same one I used for Day 11's Chain Bib Necklace) and added them to the top of the center circles. 

I decided to use a few crystals for the center of the necklace to give it a little bit more bulk and some dimension. I used light amber and light grey crystals to blend. I added a twill tape tie to the back that can be tied at any length.

Necklace, untreated wool yarn, hand dyed wool/silk yarn, hand dyed wool yarn, Swarovski crystal, cotton twill tape

This piece is clearly very similar to Necklace with Concentric Circles  from Day 9, but I think would be less dressy. Something about unwashed wool just makes things casual, I guess.

Going to get today's piece up tomorrow and then I'll be back on track. 

xo,

Arielle