Green Paper Beads

I am doing a paper bead swap over on UK Stampers Forum. Each swapper has to produce 20 hand made paper beads in a colour theme. I chose green, although the paper I have used does have some blue & purple in it.


Easy to make, I used:

• Printed paper (cut into long thin triangles approx 3/4 in x 10 in)
• Wooden Cocktail Sticks
• Glue Stick
• Versamark Inkpad
• Clear UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel)

First coat the end of the cocktail stick with Versamark (as a release agent so the bead doesn't stick). Coat the unprinted side of the paper with glue using a glue stick and carefullt roll the paper around the stick, wide end first. Roll the paper centrally around the stick ensuring the thin end is well stuck down. Allow to dry.

Roll the bead into the Versamark pad to coat and dip the bead into the UTEE. This will pick up some UTEE powder. Heat the bead with the heat gun until the UTEE melts and quickly dip the stick with the bead into the UTEE to pick up more powder and reheat. Do this once more keeping the stick rotating until the molten UTEE sets. I push the sticks into a piece of polystyrene foam until they are cool.

Carefully pull off the beads from the sticks and trim ends if necessary with a sharp craft knife to finish. If the beads don't want to come off the sticks, carefully reheat and push from the bead base upto the end of the stick to release. Take care the UTEE is very hot and can burn you easily. Allow to cool before removing the now loosened bead.

Alternatively you can use the Melt Pot to melt the UTEE and then dip each bead on its stick until coted with UTEE. This is ok if you are doing a lot or using UTEE for other projects, but for a few its probably easier to dip into the powder.

Hope you like them :-)

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