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Hi, I'm Katie Crooks, Public Programs Coordinator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery,
and today I want to show you how to craft paper beads.
Paper beads are super fun, and all you need to make them are a few simple materials
that most people have lying around.
When you get done with them, you can then use them to make really fun jewelry
and different sorts of things like that.
I have a variety of paper beads here that I've already made
just waiting to be crafted into necklaces and earrings and things like that.
Let me show you the quick steps it takes to make some beads.
To get started you're going to need some decorative paper.
I've actually cut up strips of comic books here, and I'll be using those.
Comic books are great because they have a lot of fun, vivid colors
and that translates into a wide variety of beads.
You can also use magazines, old books, things like that.
Just make sure whatever paper you're using is something that you're not going to want to read again,
because there is no going back once you've started crafting.
So the first thing you do is basically just take a page of colorful paper,
and you're going to need to cut it into thin strips.
So, colorful paper, scissors.
You're going to be doing some rolling of these beads, which you will need something to roll on.
A pencil, a chopstick.
I have an old knitting needle here that's going to work really well.
That will work for this purpose.
Then a glue stick so that you can adhere the paper to itself as you're rolling.
You'll see how I do that in just a second.
So take your colorful paper and cut it into strips.
Depending on how wide of a strip you cut or how thin of a strip you cut will equal the size of your bead.
The longer your paper, the thicker and bigger your bead will be.
The thinner your strip or the more narrow your strip is, the smaller and more petite your bead will be.
Here I have a bead with a very wide piece of paper.
This was probably an inch or more at the starting point that I rolled, so it's a nice long bead.
But then I also have beads like this little guy, who is a very small strip of paper, very narrow,
and when rolled up on itself it makes a much smaller bead.
So I have my strips, and something that is good to end all of your beads with is to end your paper in a point.
So I go ahead and I trim down a lot of my strips so that they make points.
Then get your glue stick uncapped and ready.
I'm actually going to go ahead and use the back of this old book here,
so that I don't get glue on my tablecloth.
Decide which side you like better, I think
this side looks a little less colorful, so that's the side I'm going to put up.
Grab your rolling utensil and just get started rolling it.
Once the paper is secure and around the needle just once,
wipe glue all the way down the edge.
Roll the bead up, and as I'm rolling like this, I'm actually kind of pushing down, creating some pressure.
And that pressure is helping the paper adhere to itself.
I'm at the very end now,
so I'm just going to put on a little bit more glue to really make sure it stays.
And then I'm going to use my finger to guide it on.
And I'm going to twist it between my fingers a couple of times, just to make sure it sticks.
And then sometimes you have to twist your--here it's my knitting needle--
you might be using a chopstick or a pencil.
You might need to twist that a little bit so that you can pull the bead off.
And it's as simple as that.
You can cut the ends in different ways to make different shapes.
Here I've pre-cut some paper.
These will be very, actually, wide beads.
But I've cut it in a V-shape,
and so that V-shape will make it so there's a little bit of a dip in middle of the bead, so that's kind of fun.
You can also make them so they are completely square.
You don't have to create any type of tapering at the end at all.
I have some finished beads here,
which when you get done if you really want to make sure your beads stand up to the test of time
and become a little bit water-resistant, you can put a thin layer of Mod Podge over them.
Just take a brush and brush it over, let them dry.
These here, you'll notice are a little shinier than the others, and they've all been brushed with Mod Podge.
This particular one here, which is really large,
the way that you can make a big, larger, thicker bead is to simply take your piece of paper,
roll it on, and then take another piece of paper, roll it on top.
And just build up the paper.
Then when you get to the very last layer, taper the end and finish it off.
That's how you make paper beads.
It's pretty simple.
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