Upcycled Life: Paper beads

Paper beads made from strips of magazine pages are quite simple to create. Adding small eyelets on the ends gives contrast to the paper and a beautiful finish. Have fun with colors and seeing how they look as the paper rolls up.

Start by cutting tapered strips of magazines. Play around with the width and length for different bead shapes and sizes.

To give the bead thickness to pair with the eyelets, I cut my strips straight for about four inches and then tapered the remainder of the strip.

Roll the strip on a skewer starting with the wide end.

Apply a small dab of white glue to the last inch or so of paper and finish rolling.

Use a toothpick to apply glue to each end, and insert an eyelet.

Katie Patterson Larson is the director and founder of Art Salvage, a creative reuse center in Spokane. Art Salvage keeps usable materials out of the waste stream and makes them accessible and affordable to everyone. For more information, visit artsalvagespokane.com.