Fun Jewelry Project

Hi everyone, hope your week is off to a good start!

For those of you who battled the latest winter snow storm over the weekend, I sure hope you are staying safe and snug indoors!

As for me, I've been keeping busy playing in my craft room.

So I thought I'd share with you my project that I completed for DecoArt.

The challenge this time was to create something using unconventional materials.

So, I put my thinking cap on, and came up with this:

 Can you guess what I made this necklace out of????

Paper!  Yep, I made the beads from pages torn from magazines, as well as scrapbooking paper!

 This project brought back some sweet memories from when I was a little girl.

I could hardly wait for summer vacation, as it meant I could catch up with Carol Duvall and her craft show on tv!  I'm not sure if her show was broadcast all over the country or not, but one of our local Detroit stations aired it each weekday for many years. Carol is from Michigan, by the way.

Back then (geez, I feel so old saying that!!), we didn't have Michael's or Hobby Lobby to run to for our crafting supplies.  

Oh no!

And we certainly didn't have the variety of crafting materials available like we do now.

So, Carol was a real pro at turning things like egg cartons, pringles cans, plastic jugs and more into works of art!

I remember first seeing the paper beads on her show when I was a girl, and could hardly wait to make my own!  Of course, back them, mine didn't turn out quite like these!

 Anyway, if any of your would like a mini tutorial, just let me know!

Basically, you go from this.............

to this............... 

 to this.......

 And, voila!

A handful of paper beads just waiting  to be turned  into something pretty!

I thought it would be fun to paint them (since of course a prerequisite of the project involved using DecoArt paint) to look like turquoise beads.

And for added interest, I mixed in some beads that I made from printed floral paper.

After painting, I coated all of the beads with a product (from DecoArt) called

"Triple Thick", which gives them a super shiny, hard glass like finish.

 I also mixed in little silver beads.

This is actually two long necklaces that I made, so they can be doubled over for multiple looks.

I can even wear them as bracelets by winding them around and around my wrist!!

 It was a fun, though very labor intensive project.

 The stringing part was super easy, but the making of the beads did take alot of time!

I can't wait to wear them!!