How To: Recycle Paper Into Beads! | DIY Necklace Project

Maybe I'm just cheap, but I really like the idea of making beads out of paper that you would otherwise throw away...and in this Instructable I'll show you how you can do just that. The resulting beads are actually (surprisingly) tough and durable.

I hope you enjoy this project!

- Paper: you need to use a matte (non-glossy) paper without any added coating. It needs to be porous and relatively thin. Newspaper, matte magazine pages and regular printer paper would work.

- Acrylic paints: I used black, turquoise, pink, blue, copper and gold.

- A couple of plastic pots/cups

- Cheap paintbrush

- Sandpaper: I used 600 grit wet-and-dry sandpaper

- DecoArt 'Triple Thick' Gloss Glaze: or another type of varnish.

- Drill: I used an electric drill with a 3.5mm drill bit

- Wooden skewers: it's best if these fit quite snugly in the holes you will be drilling. My skewers were about 3mm in diameter.

- Some items to balance the skewers on: I used 2 rolls of tape.

- Kettle

- Plain flour, water, a tablespoon & a saucepan.

- PVA glue

- Something to protect your work surface.

- A bowl: This needs to be heatproof and non-porous. I used a glass bowl.

- A cord to hang the beads on (or a chain): I used 3mm x 1.5mm faux suede brown cord, and used most of a 1m length.

- A large-eye needle & pliers: to pull the cord through the beads if it's a snug fit.

Rip your paper pages into small pieces and put them into a heatproof bowl. I did 2 separate mixes for 2 separate types of paper, just to compare the two.

One of my bowls had magazine pages in, which were thicker, and one had instruction manual pages in, which were thinner and more like newspaper. I only used about 4 magazine pages, but more like 20 manual pages.

Cover the paper in your bowl with hot water and leave to soak for at least an hour, stirring occasionally to help break the paper down.

Mix 240 ml (1 cup) of water with 2 tablespoons of plain flour in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring until it thickens.

This will take very little time - maybe a few minutes - and the consistency you're looking for is wallpaper paste/thick custard :)

Once this has cooled a little, pour it into a pot and add 2 tablespoons of PVA glue.

Drain as much water out of the paper pieces as you can - squeezing the paper to release more.

Then add some of the paste to the bowl. You'll need enough to coat the surfaces of all the paper pieces, but it's not an exact science, you can always add more.

Mix the paper and paste around with your hands, trying to coat all of the paper with the paste.

Then take a chunk of the paper-and-paste mixture and squeeze it together into a bead shape. Roll it into a ball in your hands and try to squeeze out as much excess paste as you can.

Repeat this until you've made all of the mixture into spheres.

Lay them out on a non-porous surface (like baking paper) and leave them to dry thoroughly. This will likely take at least a day. I left mine for a few days just to be sure.

Once dry, the beads should be very hard.

Use a drill to carefully make a hole through the centre of each one.

I'm not showing it in the photo, but I held the beads on top of a surface I didn't mind drilling into, and then drilled straight down through each bead. You can hold the beads in a vice if you prefer.

Before I painted, I quickly used some sandpaper on the surface of the beads just to smooth the surfaces, then I wiped off the paper dust. Make sure the beads are clean and dry before you paint.

How you paint the beads is completely up to you: you could paint patterns like stripes/dots/shapes, or paint the beads all different shades of the same colour to make a gradient effect...it's up to you!

I personally wanted a layered 'worn' effect, so I did a few layers of paint on each bead. I started with black, then I added turquoise, gold, copper and purple in different orders. Make sure you leave the paint to dry between layers if you're copying my method.

Because I wanted an interesting worn look, I used 600 grit wet-and-dry sandpaper on the beads once the paint had dried, to uncover little speckles of the paint layers underneath.

Try to stop sanding in one place before you go through to the paper beneath.

Once you are happy, clean the paint dust off the beads.

I used DecoArt Triple Thick glaze because it's shiny and durable.

All you have to do is paint it onto the beads, and after 5-10 minutes, use your paintbrush to remove/flatten any drips that have formed. You may need to do this once more after another 5-10 minutes.

Leave to dry.

Remove the beads from the skewers.

You may notice that there are little rough areas around the holes, so you can either use sandpaper to remove these, or (as I did) use little scissors to snip off those extra bits.

Next, string the beads onto the cord/chain you are using.

I chose some faux suede cord and used a yarn needle to pull it through the beads. I needed pliers to help me pull the 'grippy' suede through the beads.

I used this tutorial to then add sliding knots, and cut off excess cord.

And that's it, necklace completed!

I hope you enjoyed this project :D