poor man's 'glass bead' tutorial

Sometime ago I found a tutorial for this style of paper bead but it was done with very colorful scrapbook paper or recycled magazines. I loved the idea and thought about it again after finding the vintage Psalm book over the weekend. Now I promise I only used the badly damaged book not the German version my hubby tucked away on a bookshelf.

Supplies:

Vintage paper

Skewers or dowel rods the diameter of the bead hole you want to make

Matte Medium of clear drying white glue

foam brush

Distress ink (mine is brushed corduroy)

Ranger UTEE (ultra thick embossing powder)

-clear

-platinum

heat gun

clear embossing ink pad (sorry forgot that in the photo)

**Click on the picture series to enlarge**

-Cut your paper into strips as wide and the bead you want to make. (The tutorials I've seen in the past recommend making long triangular strips and the beads would be tapered, but I made mine same width top to bottom.)

-Begin wrapping it around the skewer (no glue here), then while holding the wrapped portion add your glue or matte medium with a foam brush to the end of the paper.

Continue rolling until you reach the end, slip paper bead off skewer.

-To make it look more aged I ran the edges on the bead along my distress ink pad and let dry.

**Click on the picture series to enlarge**

-Slip the bead back on the skewer and coat with more matte medium or glue to seal the paper, repeat at least once more. Allow to dry completely.

-Once dry roll the bead over your clear emboss ink pad until it's nice and wet.

-Dip the whole bead into the jar of clear UTEE and tap excess.

**Click on the picture series to enlarge**

Using the heat gun, heat bead on the stick... twirling...until all the powder is melted.

While still hot drip it back into the jar of UTEE and heat again. I do this usually a total of three times until I get a nice even finish, don't forget to spin the bead while you heat or the UTEE can drip off. Hold and let cool completely.

**Click on the picture series to enlarge**

At this point you can call your bead done but I decided after it was cooled to stick the holes in the clear emboss ink again and get just a bit of platinum UTEE on the edges, then heated until it just started to melt. Try it with whatever color you think will look good with your paper ( for the last picture I tried black embossing powder).

To show you why I seal the bead before embossing, the embossing ink will make your paper transparent and multiple layers will show. it's actually pretty cool, though not the intended result... so now you know.

Thanks for stopping by,

Angie