…compilation of tutorials
A long time ago I have found a tutorial for a cute beaded ring and then I’ve lost it.
But now I have found it again ;-)))
Have fun beading :)
Links:
Beaded Ring (“New year” ring) (English)
Beaded Ring (Bague New year) (French)
Here at unikatissima: Entries with the tags ‘beads’ and ‘ring’
I made some nice necklaces from very narrow polymer clay beads where the bead colours are blended – and I wanted to present them now.
That’s what you do:
First make a Skinner Blend (a ploymer clay slab with a colour blend).
I blended it from light green to blue.
Cut the slab in stripes and wrap them around one or more kebab skewers – not too firm or you get problems taking them off, later.
Join the edges thoroughly and with care so that the beads won’t fall apart later.
At the top of the photo you see a piece of light green polymer clay, that will become contrasting beads.
By the way: If you don’t have a pasta machine for the Skinner Blend (never use a pasta machine used for polymer clay for food again!) you can find hints on how you can manage without it via the links below.
Cut the wrapped slab with a small knife down to the skewer at regular intervals, I made my future beads about 3 mm wide.
Bake the polymer clay following the instructions and get the beads off the skewer(s) carefully.
On this photo you see my light green contrasting bead that I put between the others to make it look more interesting and you see a silver bead where I don’t remember how I coloured it.
I think that I used silver coloured metallic powder that I bought for some Mica shift projects.
I threaded my beads on a self-dyed violet silk cord and made the clasp from a black braided band and a big, round light green bead.
And that is a red necklace with Skinner Blend beads that I gave away – I’m sorry for the poor quality of the picture, when I took the photo at that time I didn’t know how to make good photos.
On both sides of the black central bead I let the colour blend go from light to dark red and loosened it up with narrow black beads.
The earrings are simply cones that I rounded at the top and that I carved slightly horizontally to make them match the necklace.
Links:
Skinner Blend
Don’t have a pasta machine?
Making A Jellyroll Cane Without A Pasta Machine
via: Glass Attic – Pasta machines – click on ‘No pasta machine?–other ways …guide rails’
Pasta Free Skinner Blend (Video)
Here at unikatissima:
Polymer Clay Mica Shift
Sometimes you need a big funnel – why not cutting the top of a plastic bottle and use this?
I find this instruction great again: with little means reaching something practical and additionally recycling :)
By the way you can use those funnels, too, when pouring little beads from one container to the other, I don’t like to use my kitchen funnels for this.
Incidentally you can use up the rest of your bottle, too ;-)
Links:
Plastic Funnel (Never buy plastic funnels again!)
Here at unikatissima: Entries containing the word ‘plastic bottle’
I found a beading tutorial for a beautiful necklace, the St. Petersburg necklace.
Doesn’t only look wonderful but seems to be easy to make, but I have to try this yet ;-)
Links:
St.Petersburg Necklace
Additionally I found (but unfortunately I can’t remember how) a PDF-file with this tutorial: Stitch a St. Petersburg to make a lariat or necklace designed by Hatsumi Oshitani (PDF – ca 600 KB)
I found several instructions for beaded edgings that I find really cute.
Personally I wouldn’t work them on scarves or similar, but on jewelry like pins or cards and artist books just like the bead picots.
Links:
Lacy Beaded Edging
Here at unikatissima:
Artist Book – see pages 9 & 10
Bead Picots
I find this a really cute idea: Eraser necklaces.
Since then I’m always looking for cheap erasers: to use the funny ones for necklaces and from the not so funny ones I simply cut stamps ;-))
Links:
Eraser Necklaces (Radiergummiketten) (German)
via: siebensachen
Here at unikatissima:
Eraser Stamps
I found a blog where the author fetched the cross stitch patterns of an old aunt from the attic and published them.
I saw beautiful patterns thereby and it’s not as if you had to work cross stitch only with the patterns ;-)
The blog is written in Netherlands and English (the italic text), but the patterns can be recognized anyhow ;-))
Links:
Cross Stitch Patterns Treasures (Tantes zolder) (Netherlands and English)
Here at unikatissima:
What Can You Do With Filet Crochet/Cross Stitch Embroidery Charts?
After I’ve made my paper beads roller that I presented yesterday I played around with paper beads a little more.
I prefer the tube beads anyway (marginally ;-)) and after having seen the paper bead designer I thought: ‘Yes, a little bit of colour is enough, you can’t see the rest anyway.’
So I quickly made me some doodle paper beads ;-)
And that’s what you do:
First I took two sheets of plain printer paper and simply doodled at one side with a blue ballpoint pen.
Then I cut the sheets in strips of the same width…
… and rolled my paper strips with my nifty paper bead roller in a wonderful short time.
Of course the hole of the bead is split into two holes, too, because my bead roller consists of two halves.
I ‘stirred’ the hole again with a toothpick so that only one big hole remained.
Somehow I didn’t want to use the glue excess as varnish for the beads, so I used a simple glue stick and covered the beads afterwards with medium gel. Here you can see them drying.
My potted palm got special leave on my balcony for it ;-)
Although I find my doodled paper beads beautiful I thought that I would look boring if I string only them, therefore I made some additional easy Peyote beads.
Looks good, doesn’t it? ;-)
I wasn’t sure yet what I would do with my beads on this photo.
It became a bracelet in the end. I simply strung the beads on an elastic and hid the knot in a bead.
And here an ‘action shot’ ;-)
It’s not so easy to take a good photo of your own arm ;-))
After I had finished with my doodled paper beads I thought, that this was a great way to make a lot of matching paper beads from advertising flyers.
So I picked an ad with a photo of bed sheets where I liked the clour scheme.
Then I measured the circumference of my doodled paper beads with a string and cut strips from the ad a little broader than necessary.
I glued the strips from the ad at one side of a plain printer paper sheet and cut the resulting papers in (in this case) 1 cm broad strips, because I wanted to have little beads.
I glued some patches from the rest of my ad on details that I didn’t like, they won’t to be seen on the bead.
Here my beads are drying on a wire because I cut about 80 paper strips and I don’t have enough toothpicks or plants for the drying process ;-)
This time I used a water-based craft glue that glues fast but dries slowly.
This is great because I could varnish my beads easily with the excess of the glue which made them shine and when my fingers eventually got sticky I could wash the glue easily away with water.
I have not yet finished, but I find my paper beads beautiful, a little bit like made from Jade.
We will see what they will become :)
Links:
Paper Bead Designer
Here at unikatissima:
Paper Beads Roller
Entries containing the words ‘paper’ and ‘bead’
In a sense I always found paper beads great, but in another sense it always makes (made! ;-)) such a mess, so that I didn’t often made some.
Then I found the paper bead purses (ooooh…). (The link doesn’t work no more, look instead for the Google image search result for ‘paper bead purse’.)
And on the website of the paper bead purse designer I found a video showing how to use a paper beads roller that you can buy at her website (this link doesn’t work neither, but there’s still the video).
Great idea!
She also describes very good how to apply the glue and how to use the glue excess as varnish for the bead.
A little more research found me an instruction on how to build a self-made paper beads roller.
Another great idea! ;-))
I wasn’t sure whether I want to make sooo many paper beads and additionally I thought that I don’t need no crank, so I simply put everything together and the result is my spontaneously made paper beads roller ;-)
And that’s what you do:
Cut your paper strips for the beads (I used a page from a travel brochure) and take two big needles, two toothpicks (they have to be smooth!) or – as I did – two little metal skewers.
Join both needles (toothpicks, skewers…).
It would be enough to wrap some tape around, but I didn’t want to become my skewers sticky after taking away the tape, therefore I wrapped a broad strip of paper around and taped that.
Slip the end of a paper strip between both skewers (if you use triangular ones, slip in the broad end) and begin to wrap on the bead.
On the photo you can see the paper strip that holds together my skewers.
That’s how it looks shortly before you’re finished with wrapping.
You can’t see no glue on this photo because I can’t wrap with one hand and take photos with the other – at least not without dripping glue everywhere ;-)
When your bead is done you can easily remove it.
I was amazed at how fast and easy everything worked and I had much less mess than before ;-)
The hole of the bead is split into two holes because my bead roller consists of two halves.
I then simply ‘stirred’ the hole with a toothpick so that only one big hole remained ;-)
(By the way, the instruction for this bead is scheduled for tomorrow ;-))
Have fun wrapping paper beads! :))
and if you want to try some other bead shapes check out the Paper University.
Links:
Paper Bead Purses
The link doesn’t work no more, look instead for the Google image search result for ‘paper bead purse’.
Paper Beads Roller Video
Paper Beads Roller Video
Self-made Bead Roller (How to use a bead roller) => scroll down to ‘Hand Made Bead Roller’
Different Paper Bead Shapes (Recycled Paper Beads)
Google search result for ‘paper bead howto’
Google image search result for ‘paper bead howto’
Google search result for ‘Papierperle Anleitung’
Google image search result for ‘Papierperle Anleitung’
Here at unikatissima: Entries containing the words ‘paper’ and ‘bead’
I found the Ladder Rings where they added a link to the (free) instruction. But you have to register there and I don’t like this.
So I figured out how I would do it and that’s what I came up with (it may be that their instruction is completely different):
That’s what you do:
You need two sizes of beads which are to be linked as seen in the diagram.
If you’re ready it doesn’t look very good because there are really gaps between the little beads as in the diagram.
That’s why you pull the thread once more through all little beads – the ring is finished.
Caution: The second step tightens the ring considerably.
I made my first ring much too narrow because I didn’t know that it gets smaller in the second step.
Unfortunately I can’t say how much.
At the second try I did it differently: I repeated the first step until I thought that it should be enough, then I pulled the thread through the little beads on one side and tried if the ring fits.
It didn’t, so I pulled out the thread from the little beads, repeated the first step two more times and then it was right.
Links:
Ladder Rings