Friday, April 8, 2016

Paper Bead Blanks

Paper bead blanks  what are they ?
Paper bead blanks is the solution I have come up with so that I could make all the paper beads I wanted to without having to decorate them while creating them.




 Why would I want to make paper bead blanks?
Having paper bead blanks in your beading supplies allows you to have any size bead available to you while you are creating your jewelry pieces. Giving you the opportunity to color or decorate them as needed and to customize them to fit in perfectly with your project.

How do I make Paper Bead Blanks?
Just choose the beads you want to make I like to make 50 of these paper bead blanks at a time. Once you have  all of your paper beads rolled you will get them ready for painting or dipping.  You will now want to mix some paint in with your varnish then dip or paint all your beads and let them dry  this could take up to 3 coats so that you end up with hardened and solid colored paper beads. There you have it Paper bead blanks.

Why am I adding Paint  to the varnish?
The reason you are adding paint to the varnish is so that the varnish will harden the paper bead  creating a good strong bead blank. The paint will color the varnish leaving you with a paper bead  that will have a consistent color covering it. which will make it easier to change it to what you will need later.

What are the best paint colors to use?
The best paint colors to use on your paper bead blanks are the following.
White: white paint will make it so that whatever color you choose to cover the paper bead blank with will give you the true color.

Black: black base paint on your paper bead blanks will give you a darker  shade of the color used.
Gold/Silver/Copper/Bronze: The metallic  paints are great to use  just on the ends of the black and white paper bead blanks to give the that metallic feel to your beads taking away the attention of them having been made with paper.

What color do you use most?
I make all of my paper bead blanks white for me it works best as I do not have a lot of storage space. I also like to make all my own custom colors and with the paper bead blanks being white they  always end up the color I have created. But If I had more storage room I would make all of the paper bead blanks in all of the colors just to save time while making  jewelry.

Do These paper bead blanks have to be stored in any special way?

The paper bead blanks do not need any special type of storage as long as you have let them totally dry before storing. If they are not totally dry you could end up with a bunch of paper beads stuck together. Also there are times when I will make tons of beads but do not glaze them right away , waiting till I have time then do them all at once. If you do this you will want to keep your paper beads in a dry area as moisture could ruin your paper beads before you get a chance to waterproof them. 




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