Bead Maker

I got a wonderful surprise in my mailbox on Monday. A bead maker, compliments of a friend and Chuck Johnson from C-5 Creations (sorry I don't think he has a web site yet). I know he wants to sell them, so stay tuned. And here it is: http://www.xmission.com/~wa7jos/C-5/PaperBead/

Well I hadn't gotten home till late on Monday night, and needed to get up early the next day for work, so only got to try making one bead, and liked it. So needless to say I was anxious the next day to finish work and get home and make a bunch more. BIG GRIN.

I usually use a Quilling tool and thin oriental papers or hand decorated rice paper etc to make beads, because mine are usually for fine threads, but with the latest challenge we had at gg design using watercolor paper, my quilling tool would not work for this. Yes I can use a bamboo skewer or knitting needle, but the paper, especially thicker papers, have a tendency to slip while you're trying to turn the bead. So this tool was just fabulous for making beads.

I tried it with various papers (see list below) and even though the hole is approximately the same size as a bamboo skewer hole, it will still work for my finer threads. I just insert/glue a small bead inside the holes.
Note some of the beads have a second view of them - the ones on the darker or black background.
Most of the beads are formed with a long thin triangular shape piece of paper except for #2 which uses 2 triangles cut on one piece of paper. Most of my strips were from 6" to 10" long.

1. Arches 140# HP watercolor paper (3/4"w), colored with Pan Pastels, Clear Thermal embossed and a stripe of Liquitex Glass Bead Medium.
2. Heavy textured mulberry paper (3/4"w) which I had colored green and then thermal embossed high points with gold. Rolled my bead, then thermal embossed with clear. I love the shape of this bead. Very organic.
3. I started this one with a gold parchment type stationary paper (1"w), then with the heavy paper from #2. Thermal embossed with clear.
4. A burgundy toned Bazzill monochromatic cardstock (1"w), then clear thermal embossed.
5. Canson 90# CP watercolor paper (3/4"w) decorated with black ink and iridescent medium. Clear thermal embossed.
6. 140# CP watercolor paper (1/2"w), decorated with several layers of acrylic paint. Used a Quickie Glue pen to put dots of glue around and dipped into a copper micro glitter jar.
7. Canson 90# CP watercolor paper (1/2"w) decorated with green watercolors. Clear thermal embossed and dipped into clear "sugar beads"
8. Same mulberry paper from above, but done with a slice of thin strip of scrap and just let it roll wherever it wanted, almost like a ball of yarn. Clear thermal embossed.
9. 65# cardstock which was gold embossed and run through a Cuttlebug with the Swiss dots folder. Clear thermal embossed. The smaller one (1/2"w) started with the parchment paper first and continued with the gold cardstock. The larger bead is 3/4"w.

So thanks so much for this great little tool.