Calendarbeads

Your favorite month of the year to wear as bracelet or necklace (or ...). I chose July 2020 for not lock-down-ing but vacation and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. Which month will you choose?

Make your own paper beads (and optional also a tool to roll them with ease) from old calendars or newspapers or used gift wrap papers,...

• Old photo calendar, at least 15 inch long
• "Art Potch" (or glue and lacquer)
• Cutting mat and ruler (metal)
• Stanley knife
• Paint brush
• Paper bead rolling tool (from chop stick)

Choose a month - it should have colors you like

Cut tapered stripes, 0.5 inch wide on one side, nearly zero on the other

Place the wide side of the paper strip in your tool, roll and and add glue with the paint brush from time to time as you go. Finish off with a little more glue or lacquer. Then push the pearl from the tool and let it dry, while making the next one.

If you use Art Potch this is really fast, since it dries really quickly - the first bead is completely dry, when you start the third one...

I like rolling beads while having Zoom Meetings or while homeschooling the kids - to keep my hands busy and to keep me concentrated and also I like the feeling of doing at least something productive....

Play with the dimensions of your paper strips to get different bead shapes!

Have fun!

Supplies:

• Chop Stick
• Knife
• sanding paper
• washy tape
• metal strip from a loose leaf binder
• wire cutter

First Steps:

1. Split the chop stick on one side with the knife.
2. Cut of the wide part.
3. Sand it down to the dimensions you want.
4. Stabilize the tool with a ring layer of washy tape. (see picture)

Second Steps

1. Take the metal strip from the binder and put one end into the split middle of the chop stick.
2. Bend it around at least one full round and cut it of.
3. Remove from chop stick and secure the edges with washy tape.
4. Put it on the chop stick again - this will help you to easily remove the bead from the tool