Friday Fun Day: Make your own paper beads

This talented lady sells her beads.

The goal of Friday Fun Day is to find easy, cheap, and fun activities for kids.  While primarily this blog helps brides and newlyweds, the world is full of kids.  Maybe you have kids, or nieces and nephews, godchildren, etc.  These are some ideas to keep them busy and happy.  Maybe steal a few ideas if you are planning a wedding and you need to keep the kids entertained, then keep those ideas handy for when it's time for you to have kids!

Today's project is about as cheap as you can get.  It's probably free for almost all of you.  What you need is an old magazine, even some shiny paper junk mail is fine!  Some regular white glue (get fancy with decoupage if you want), a scissors and some yarn.  You're done.

My kids and I did this over the weekend.  Below are the instructions, materials, pictures.  Have fun!
Make your own jewelry and other great stuff with these shiny paper beads. Kids will have fun cutting out colorful pictures from old magazines to create beads that can be used in almost any craft. 

What you'll need:

1. Scissors
2. Magazines
3. Glue
4. Yarn
5. Skinny straw (for wrapping the paper around)

How to make it:

1. Find colorful magazine pages or use shiny-papered junk mail
2. Cut long triangle strips about 1/2 an inch to 1 inch wide at the bottom and for the height, use the length of the page.
3. Starting at the wide end, roll the strip tightly around the skinny straw (you could use a pencil too, you're looking to create enough space in the hole of the bead so you can fit the yarn through it.)
4. Halfway through as your wrapping the paper around, dot a bit of glue on the paper and keep on rolling.
5. Glue the tip and hold down for about 30 seconds, move to the side and start another one.
6. Optional: When all beads are done, lightly paint each bead with a gloss or some slightly watered down glue to make them harder and more durable.

Can be fun for adults too!  Check out this site for more ideas.

Have an idea? Share it here by posting a comment below. Let's all help each other out.

Posted in: Friday Fun Day,Kids Crafts