making victorian paper beads - a perfect mother's day project

mom and tab - please stop reading this. you'll find out on mother's day!

lillie has had some great projects in her art class this year. several of them are being used as ideas for our mother's day projects! there is nothing like teaching a child that the best gifts are made with love, by hand.  when lillie gets tired, she tells me, "mama, i don't have enough love to keep working on this right now. i am tired." and so we stop for a while.

these victorian paper beads are perfect for a hands-on art project. in victorian england, women would get together and make beads on their knitting needles, and then string them together to make door curtains. more recently, i've read of many projects in developing countries, where women find scrap paper and make these beads to sell, and earn money to take care of their family. either way, it is a lovely tradition!

things you'll need:
paper, in colors that are pleasing to you (or white paper, and have your kids color it)
some big thick nails
elmer's glue
paraffin (find it in the canning supplies section of your grocery store)
an old can to melt the paraffin in
something to heat it on - a hot plate, or we used an old waffle iron and just kept it closed and put the water chestnut can on top. it heated quite well.
beading wire for the necklace
auxiliary glass beads, if you want to intersperse them for variety

you can start with just about any kind of paper. if the paper is too heavy, then it will be difficult to roll. ideal papers are wrapping paper, magazine pages, copy paper, or we used scrapbooking paper sheets in beautiful colors. you think that you'll be seeing the patterns on the paper, but unless they are tiny prints, it will just get lost as it rolls up. you can take plain white copy paper and mark some triangular lines on it, and then have your kids color it - this is what lillie did in her art class. then you cut on the dark lines, and you will get beads in black and whatever colors they colored the paper with.

cut your paper into long triangles. make the fat end no more than an inch, or else the bead will be really too long to bend well on a necklace. you can experiment with different shapes -  it is all up to your creativity.  the thin end should go to a point.

melt some paraffin in an old can - a shallow can is best. a tuna can might be too short. we used a water chestnut can and it was perfect. keep it warm (on your hot plate).

take some big long nails and dip the ends into the melted paraffin. then rub the wax off - this will make it easier to slip the paper beads off.

take a nail and a piece of triangular paper and start wrapping it around the nail tightly. keep wrapping it til you get to the end, then seal the end down with glue on the underside of the paper and then smooth it on the top, as well.

dip into the paraffin, just long enough to coat the bead. let it dry - lean the end of the nail against something so that you don't get a flat spot on the bottom.

when it is cool, slide the bead off the nail gently. rub it with your hands to make it shiny (GREAT job for small kids).  voila! done!

it took us about 5 hours to make enough beads for 5 long necklaces (two grammas, auntie tab, myself, and our adopted soldier, b.) yes, it got tedious after a while, so we did it while watching movies.  then we strung them on gold beading wire, along with some other glass beads, and tied 2 square knots to hold them.

lillie was so proud of herself, for working so hard to make such a gift of love! and she learned a lot - melting properties of wax, different qualities of different weights of paper, how much glue you need to hold it together, how to be careful around hot things, and how to shine up the wax. she could do every step of this, although it ended up with me being the roller and dipper for speed, and her doing the gluing, taking the beads off the nails, and polishing. every day, she asks if we can make more. i think making another necklace for herself is up next! i think these would make great 3D art, if you glued them to a gorgeous piece of paper and framed it - or made cards with them on the front! the sky's the limit, with a little artist in the house...