Handmade Beads tutorial

Recently, I discovered the wonderful and inspiring ‘Jennibellie’ and her amazing blog. Her blog is Chock- o- block full of handmade art journal ideas, not to mention the fabulous recycling, when making your art. (Go to the list of blogs I follow to see a link to her blog)

I was particularly drawn to her handmade beads in which she uses to decorate her art journals. They are so pretty and as I found out, very easy to make yourself. All you need is acrylic paint, glue and alfoil really!

So, what I’m going to do is link to jelliebellies tutorial, so you can see for yourself, as well as showing you my photos of the beads I made, which I learnt from her video.

I am in the process of making an almost fluro green journal which I will show when finished, so I thought what a lovely way to decorate it.

Without delay I got out my green and purple acrylic paints and alfoil, and I was on my way.

So first thing to do was to paint both sides of my kitchen alfoil. i chose one side green and the other side purple with white glitter. For the purple side I used Ranger dabber paints and it dried so much quicker then my jo sonya paint.

I then cut into strips as directed by jennibellie.

Now all I had to do is scrutch into tight little balls and I did use the table to help me a little as jennibellie suggests. I have to admit by the end of it my fingertips were a little tender!LOL

I didnt have any toothpicks around the home so I improvised and made the holes in the beads with a sharp sewing machine needle which is thicker then most sewing needles.

For the glue I decided to use 3D Crystal Laquer and smudged it all over the bead with my fingers.

Last of all just let dry!

They are so pretty with the silver shining through. Now all I have to do is thread some string through the holes and attatch to my journal.

I think I'll need some more, so I'll post my bead journal as soon as its finished.
You can visit jennibellies video instructions here:
http://youtu.be/IUOU5HU4yww