Paper Bead Project

As promised, today I worked on the paper covered beads. I bought a kit at the craft store because I wanted to try this out. It was not as hard as I thought it might be, but is sort of tedious. The starting materials are pictured below:

The kit included the 18 wooden beads, the various papers, and the paste. All you need is scissors and a paint brush. The first step is to cut the pieces of paper into smaller pieces that measure 1.5 inches by 2 inches.

You measure these around the bead to make they will wrap around the bead without overlapping. If there is excess, you trim it off. Then you cut the paper so that it looks like a child's drawing of a Christmas tree.

You then coat the backside (non printed) liberally with the paste. The instructions say you can use a paintbrush, but the paste is too thick for that. I used my fingers as that seemed easiest. Then, you wrap the paper around the bead with the jagged edges facing the bead hole. You smooth the paper so that the seam where the edges meet is almost invisible.

From there, you can either trim the excess off or stuff it down the bead hole. I elected to stuff it in the bead hole using the small end of my paint brush. My results are below:

As you can see, my bead is not perfectly smooth. However, for my first try I figure it wasn't too bad. You will also note lots of paste smeared all over the table. This is not a neat project. Once the glue has completely dried, I will be spraying the beads with an acrylic sealer to protect them and add some shine. I will try to remember to post the completed project!