Paper Beads

Paper bead keychain

This week’s project is almost purely a craft. The best you can do to use your artistic skills is to draw patterns or decorations along the borders of the beads, and on the very last inch of the paper strips.  There’s no end to the beautiful beads you could design if you wished.

Rather than put designs on these beads, I chose to use words, and I colored the edges. 

Just copy and paste the bead patterns, cut them out, roll them up over an orange stick or knitting needle, and glue the end in place.  Then you can shellac the beads and use them to make jewelry

The paper beads featured here

             As a child, I used to cut bead wedges from the pages of discarded magazines.  This craft has taken off over the years, and crafters continue to make a large variety of beads using this method.

Paper beads made from magazine pages

Make your beads this way, or design your own, as I did.  Have fun and see what beautiful

Beads you can create.

Enlarge for bigger sized beads

Teachers and parents, remember this project if you need Indian beads for costumes at Thanksgiving time.

Scully Scarecrow

Here’s a cheerful scarecrow, with his pet bird, for your home or school bulletin board that can be made to bend into many funny positions.  Copy and paste him in color, or in black and white so you can color him any way you want.

Share the fun with everyone!

Fall Banner

Autumn Leaf and Owl Banner

            This cheerful autumn banner can be hand colored or copied in color.

 After you’ve colored each ornament and cut it out,

 you bend back the strips at the top of each piece and tape them in back.

Then you can thread the ornaments onto cord, twine, or ribbon, and mount your banner across the mantel or wall.

Save space above each ornament to tie on a little extra cord or ribbon bow.

So fun! 

   

Middle banner ornament

Leaves--copy and paste, then print out as many leaves as you wish

If you'd like to hand color the owl ornament, here is your picture

Leaves for hand coloring


Have a blast!

September 2013

Autumn

Change is in the Air

September 2013 will be a transitional month.  We will present you with projects to do, and provide you with the art to do it—free this month.

            Next month we’ll present the projects, then send you to Etsy to purchase the art you are interested in acquiring. (Very inexpensively) 

We will still have  freebies and a coloring book page, and will welcome any input you feel brave or generous enough to make. We hope this will make our blog more useful to you. Enjoy!

Teacher Appreciation Label

            As we start a new school year, teachers look for ways to make school welcoming to new students.  It might be fun to make school welcoming to your child’s teacher as well.

Here is a little teacher appreciation label to go with any teacher gift you may want to send.  You can copy and paste the colored and black and white labels, and decide for yourself if you want to use one or both labels.

The Coloring book page this month can be copied, pasted, and scanned into your computer. Then you can paint it in a program that employs some kind of flood fill device.  I have done one picture on the computer, and another one by hand with colored pencils. See what you can do with this month’s page!

Computer colored picture

Hand colored picture; colored pencil