by ·Comments Off on Low Budget Craft Ideas With Waste Paper

Low budget craft ideas are so important in a craft world dominated by very expensive craft supplies.

So you may be really pleased to hear about how you can make one of these beautiful paper bead bracelets using rubbish that would usually get thrown away.

You will need a couple of other supplies but the main material used in these beautiful low budget craft ideas is scrap paper.

If you are new here, you may want to check out this video for other low budget craft ideas, but don’t forget to come back and try out this one!

And if you prefer to go straight to the tutorial to see the ideas I am showing you in this post, click here to go to YouTube.

If you are here to find out where you can buy the tools I use in the video, scroll down to the end of this post to find the links.

My favourite thing to do is go to my local card shop, buy a birthday card and then make a beautiful bracelet from the bag it came in.

It’s always tricky giving friends and family handmade presents. We all know that fine line between something that looks handmade because it’s so badly done and something that is handmade but also very pretty and wearable.

These little bracelets are brilliant if you are looking for low budget craft ideas for making presents or, even to make stuff to sell at craft fairs.

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The beautiful beads on the right were made from this small, flimsy paper bag that many people would throw away. And they make gorgeous, delicate bracelets.
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So you can see, low budget craft ideas don’t have to look cheap.

Most people are shocked when I tell them that the bracelet I have given them is made from the paper bag their birthday card came in.

The beads actually look like they are made from china if you finish them properly with a few coats of glaze.

And if you are someone who doesn’t have a ton of money to spend, a well made hand crafted gift is a great alternative to a shop bought present.

I would be touched if someone spent their precious time making me something.

The beads below were made from a sheet of waste printer paper and wrapping paper from one of my birthday presents.

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I never throw wrapping paper away, even if it is torn. You only need a very tiny area of the wrapping paper to make these beads – watch the video to find out why.

The low budget craft ideas I show you in my current YouTube video will probably get you thinking differently about scrap paper.

The technique I show you for how to use the wrapping paper to make paper beads means that you can use any kind of printed matter as the base for the beads.

So that means you can use old bank statements, letters, junk mail – anything that comes in a standard page size with a rectangular shape, or that can be cut into a rectangular shape as you see me doing in the video.

What about the tools I use in the video?

The paper bead rolling tool I use is my own design. I manufacture them myself and sell them online at a very reasonable price.

I also design and sell the printed templates which you can buy online and download to print off but for those who don’t have a printer, I have designed some paper bead strip template stencils that you place on to top of your paper and draw inside.

The stencils come in one sheet with four different size stencils on it.

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Buy the 3mm Easy Beady paper bead rolling tool – £7.00 – ships worldwide.

Please note the special free offer below, when buying both tools together.

Buy the 5mm Easy Beady paper bead rolling tool – £8.00 – Ships worldwide.

Please note the special free offer below, when buying both tools together.

Buy the Easy Beady paper bead strip stencil – £5.99 – Ships worldwide.

Please note the special free offer below, when buying both tools together.

Free Offer worth £5.99!

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When you buy the 3mm and 5mm tools together using this link FREE OFFER, you will get the stencil completely free.

Just click on the free offer link and you will be taken to my etsy shop. I ship worldwide.

Come back soon because I will be giving you details of the new paper beading products I am adding to my range in the very near future.

All my Easy Beady products are designed to make paper beading easier and quicker.

And if you are looking for any of the other craft supplies I use in my videos, visit my Amazon craft supplies page, Rainbow Lane.

For those people who don’t have access to a craft store or who don’t have time to search around online, I have created this page where you will find some of the products I use and some other products that are similar.

However, I do urge people to shop around to find the craft supplies they need – my Amazon page is there to give you suggestions if you don’t know where to get your supplies.

Amazon Affiliate Statement.

Thank you for reading this post.

I hope you enjoyed it and are fired up with some low budget craft ideas – see you next time with more crafty ideas for you!

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by ·4 Comments
Saucer Beads

Saucer beads can be quite tricky to master when you first get into making paper beads.

I tried all sorts of ways but then I found the best way to make saucer beads of all different sizes is to use the layering process.This works best of all for me.

To make the necklace you see above, I used an old 12 x 12 inch sheet of scrapbooking paper I had laying around. I cut it into quarter inch tapered strips and then layered them to get a variety of shapes and sizes.

Saucer beads can be quite tricky to master when first making paper beads. Click To Tweet
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by ·Comments Off on Easy Beady Paper Bead Tool & Templates

Why did I make a paper bead tool?

Making paper beads from junk  is one of my favourite crafts. I have always loved transforming mundane pieces of paper into beautiful jewellery.

I also love creating my own artwork to use. But my enjoyment was spoilt by not being able to roll the paper bead strips very easily.

I wanted something that gripped the paper well enough to get the bead started easily.

I also wanted something that would allow me to slide the finished bead off quickly, smoothly and without pulling the middle out of it.

There have been many bead rollers for sale for many years but they were made from bamboo that has been split into two and then bound with paper to make a handle.

They were ok and I made quite a few of my own over the years. The problem that I found was the bamboo could sometimes snag the paper making beads hard to slide off.

So I created my own tools.

Learn to Make Gorgeous Paper Beads In Minutes!

Once you have the tool and have practiced on a few strips of paper, making beautiful beads is really easy.

 

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With the paper bead tool, you will never get mad at junk mail again!

Instead, you will be saying thank you for all the wonderful free paper you are getting.

And think of the thrill when you make a really beautiful bracelet out of something that used to annoy you! Make unique presents that have cost you next to nothing.

The possibilities for creating paper beads of all different shapes and sizes is endless with the paper bead tool. Click To Tweet

Or create your own art work and make some really colourful beads that are truly unique and cannot be copied.

The possibilities for creating paper beads of all different shapes and sizes is endless with the paper bead tool.

I really enjoy colouring designs on plain paper and then making beads from it. If you add several coats of glaze, they look so amazing, no one guesses they are made from paper.

After experimenting with lots of different materials for many years, I came up with a paper bead tool that I absolutely loved using.

The design was nice and simple and very easy to use. It rolled nice tight beads that were easy to slide off and I was happy with that.

I eventually made the tools in two sizes, 3mm and 5mm.

The 3mm size allows you to make beads with a smaller core for threading on finer stringing material up to 2.5mm thick.

The 5mm size allows you to make beads with a larger core for threading on thicker stringing materials such as leather or Pandora style bracelets.

After the paper bead tool issue was conquered, I set about making myself templates to use over and over again so I didn’t have to measure every time.

For many years I used my drawn out templates with carbon paper because I had no printer or computer in those days.

 

Eventually, I refined my templates to sell to other people that I was teaching in craft groups.

In recent times, I extended that further to create downloadable templates for sale online that people can print off and stick onto their craft paper with removable glue tape while they cut with a craft knife.

And then I designed a set that can be used with electronic cutters such as Silhouette Cameo.

 

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For easy cutting of paper bead strips without all the hassle of measuring and drawing lines, I have designed some templates you can download from my etsy shop. 

They are very easy to use. Click here to find out how you can use my templates to cut quick, easy strips and then use the template paper to make more beads so there is no waste! You can also use the templates in image editing software such as Photoshop to overlay onto printable  designs.

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The one inch electronic template printed onto a design for easy cutting.

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There are two ways to use the downloadable templates. You can print the template, fix it to your chosen bead paper with removable adhesive tape and cut your strips along the lines with ruler and craft knife.

The picture to the left shows strips cut with that method. As you can see, this gives you the strips cut in your chosen paper and the left-over template strips. You can hand colour those with Sharpies and make more beads. No waste!

Or you can overlay the png file onto an image on screen (see the blue design above), print it and cut along the printed lines with ruler and craft knife or a guillotine. Visit my etsy shop today to get your downloadable templates.

Please note – we have now changed the handle design of the Easy Beady Paper Bead Tool back to the original one I used when we first began making paper bead tools for my students to buy.

The bead tool demonstrated in the video is the one that we produced to sell online to be lighter weight and easier for posting all over the world.

There is an updated video here showing the new tools in action.

The original handle we used was bigger and heavier and pushed up postage costs. However, my workshop students who have tried both handle styles over the years preferred the heavier, more curvy handle on the 5mm tool and most people said they found the grip better on the curvier 3mm tool handle.

So we took the decision to sell the online paper bead tools with the old style handle. The straight handle tool is available on request.

 

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The new paper bead tools with the old style handles.
The new paper bead tools with the paper bead strip stencil.
The old style paper bead tools with the straight handle.

We have also released our Easy Beady paper bead strip stencil templates for sale on Etsy.

You can see the stencil in the picture above. It can be found on Etsy by clicking here.

At the moment, when you buy both the new 3mm and 5mm curvy handled bead tools together, we are giving you the paper bead strip stencil template free at a saving of £5.99.

Click here to go to the offer on Etsy.

We ship all over the world.

If you would like to start using a paper bead tool to make your crafting life easier – order my paper bead tools and templates today – you will be glad you did!