Upcycled Paper Beads

This is my preparation for the WCHS co-curricular day tomorrow. I can’t give away too much information just yet as the girls don’t know what they are doing but I’ll explain and post some more photos after the event.

So, I’ve been making my first ever batch of upcycled paper beads. I chose a nice orange advert from an old Sainsburys magazine and cut 17 isosceles triangles from it. They are cut lengthways (to make them as long as possible) and all have a base of 2cm. I then rolled the beads using a cocktail stick to start them off. The rolled paper then needed to be secured so I varnished it. Tomorrow I will be using acrylic varnish but I only had clear nail varnish at home so I tried that. For the record, it gives a nicer shine but is not as easy to use as the acrylic varnish.

Once dry I threaded them all onto a piece of elastic to make an African-style paper bead necklace, which I look forward to wearing with my authentic Ghanaian dress tomorrow.