Learn to make an Organizer with Paper Beads: Recycling Paper Craft

Summer vacations just got over and schools had just restarted here in the UAE when we had another long weekend with the Islamic New Year holiday. So, back after the long weekend, here's a small recycling craft tutorial for all of you crafting buddies out there.

We did a lot of crafting during the summer vacations and we have also posted some tutorials earlier to recycle magazine papers and use them for crafting purpose. 

We posted an easy tutorial on making paper beads for jewelry, you will find the tutorial on this link. Do visit this post if you wish to make some paper beads jewelry. It's an easy and fun crafting activity for the girls especially.

Paper beads Jewelry

Also, we posted a tutorial earlier on making the beads and make a photo frame using those paper beads. You will find the link to make the photo frame by clicking on the here. It's an excellent crafting activity for children, be it a boy or girl. Most of us like to show off their photos and crafting out a photo-frame all on your own is an addition to not only show off your photo but your crafting skills too!

Paper beads Photoframe

Finally, here's another little tutorial from our summer vacation crafts that will show you how to recycle magazine paper into something useful. Magazine papers? Well yes, they are shiny and glossy and are available in many colors. And crafting with them is fun. 

Now, this tutorial is for children who love crafting, for women who love to spend doing something useful on hot afternoon days staying indoors and for all crafters, of course, belonging to any age group. Also, if you don't like painting but would like to get crafty all the same, then this craft activity is a must try for such people. 

Just select colorful magazine papers and get crafty! 

No paints, no messy hands!

So this small recycling project can be basically be done by anyone and you don't need any special crafting skills. All you need is some patience and time in hand. 

However, for kids, I would suggest a little supervision under adults while they do this project. Take help of adults around you especially when you need cutting the magazine papers.

Materials required for this project

You will need magazine papers, crafting glue, paper cutters, skewer stick for making the paper beads and that's it.

Procedure 

Step 01:

As shown in the picture below, you need lots of magazine paper for this project. You can select and remove only those colored papers as per your liking. Thereafter, you will need to fold the paper in half longitudinally and cut it either with a pair of scissors or a paper cutter. Give it another fold lengthwise and cut it along.

Step 01: Cutting the magazine paper into long stripes.

For this step, you can take a couple of sheets together, align them well and cut them all together with a paper cutter. This will save time.

Step 02:

Since we used an A4 sized magazine, from every sheet, we got four long stripes as shown in the right inset in the picture below. Once your long strips are ready you can start with step 02 and that is making the paper beads.

For step 02, take a skewer and use it to roll the paper strips as shown below in the left inset. You will need a lot of patience in this step. Kids love this activity but may start getting bored after making 4-5 beads. So don't attempt to finish this activity in one single day. My kid spent many afternoons just making the paper beads. She would watch some cartoons on the television while she made these paper beads. 

Step 02: Start rolling the paper strip to make the paper beads

Step 03: 

Once you near the end of the paper strip, apply glue to seal it and leave it to dry. Keep rolling the paper strips one after the another on the skewer stick, apply glue at the end, and slide out the stick from the paper bead.

Step 03: Applying glue to the end of paper bead

After a couple of weeks, we had a row of paper beads all lined up and sorted colorwise. And they lied there all the same till we decided what to do with them.

Finally, we took a rectangle waste carton that was a tea package. We measured the size of the beads and cut the carton as per the height of the beads. Once the carton's height matched with the beads' height, we applied glue to the carton surface and stuck the paper beads one by one, covering the entire outer surface of the carton.

For gluing the paper beads on the carton box, I would suggest the use of good quality liquid glue or a glue gun; this will ensure that the beads are securely stuck on the surface of the paper carton. We used white liquid glue and neatly stuck the beads on the rectangle carton box.

Rectangle Organiser made with Paper Beads

Actually, once the paper beads are ready, all you need to do is use them to make something beautiful. You can make many such organizers to stock your medicine bottles, or cosmetics or anything. You can decorate an old picture frame or an old mirror using the same paper beads. Since these beads are made from magazine papers, they have a glossy and shiny look and give a good finish without having the need to paint them.

Some Aesthetic Tips:

• To get the right look and effect, it all depends on what color magazine papers you have selected. For example, if you want all greys and white beads, you should choose the magazine papers of those shades only. So decide the color scheme you want to use and select the magazine papers accordingly.
• Also, the consistency in size of beads is very important for this project. The more consistent the paper beads are in terms of thickness and size, the better look you will get in the final product. 

Hope this tutorial for recycling magazine papers is useful.

Try this activity and let us know your feedback. We are looking forward to constructive comments.

Thank you for stopping by...Have a good day.

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Paper Beads Jewelry: Easy Craft ideas for Kids

Summers are getting hotter and hotter here in Dubai and we are getting stuck indoors. This is the right time to do some indoor activities and engage in some creative art. Now, we wanted to make something that would be fun and easy to make. So we tried our hands at making paper beads. Making paper beads is fun for kids and with a little help from us, elders they can make some interesting stuff. We were not sure what we would make at the beginning, hence all we focused, in the beginning, was collecting some colorful magazine papers and making beads out of them. It was entirely my daughter's responsibility. My 8-year-old had to search for colorful papers, make beads and then sort them and also decide what to make. This entire activity spanned over a week. She would make some beads, while she watched cartoons or just make them during the hot afternoons and leave them aside for the day...but by the end of the weekend, we had loads of paper beads, all of different colors and sizes.

Before we begin any activity, I always have this habit of researching a little bit about the craft and my quick search introduced me to an interesting website that had all the information we needed to make paper beads. Also, we came across some interesting information about the history of paper beads. Did you know that making paper beads goes back to the Victorian era when young ladies would gather in their dining rooms and make beads from scraps of wallpaper rolled on a knitting needle! This activity was revived in the 1920s and 30s for paper bead jewelry making. 

Interesting isn't it? Making something useful out of scraps...well that's my kind of activity! It is always a challenge and fun to make use of scraps and make something interesting out of them.

This post contains a tutorial for making paper beads from magazine paper. It is a fun activity for kids and can keep them occupied for hours together. Also, making some handmade jewelry is always fun for us girls! Yes, this is what we did in the end. We made some paper beads jewelry...bracelets and lockets.

Materials required for making the paper beads:

Magazine paper, straws/toothpicks, glue, scissors, paper cutter

Procedure:

Step 01: Search for magazine paper. We used magazine papers from an A4 size magazine.

Step 02: Fold the paper into half and cut the paper into half using a paper cutter. We stacked about a couple of sheets and cut them together with a paper cutter. Saves time!

Step 03: Fold them into half again and cut them into further halves.

Step 04: Last fold and cut them into strips.

We have paper strips ready.

Step 05: Next, we cut the paper strips using a pair of scissors into triangular halves as shown below.

Triangular shapes cut outs from magazine paper.

Step 06: Next, cut off the top thin triangular corners with a scissor. This will make it easy when you glue them later.

Step 07: Now take a toothpick or a straw and start rolling the paper strips over them as shown.

Step 08: Apply glue at the end of the strip and roll it on.

Step 09: Slide the bead out from the straw.

Step 10: Make many such paper beads.

After our paper beads were ready, we sorted the beads, based on their sizes and colors, and made different accessories like bracelets and paper bead lockets and so on. 

I just let my daughter make whatever she liked....freedom to create...can be the best thing we as adults can do to unleash their creativity. I helped her in stringing the beads but rest all the hard work from making the paper beads to the design of the jewelry was hers. So here's what we made...

Paper beads Jewelry

Also, adding another picture of a completed necklace and matching bracelet made with paper beads. This particular set of beads were made by rolling the magazine paper over a toothpick.

Paper beads necklace and bracelet set

Hope, you kids out there, try this activity and have fun...

Have a great day!

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