Book Beads ∙ How To by Smallest Forest on Cut Out + Keep

About
Published over 2 years ago

Time

Time:0h40

Difficulty

Pretty Easy

Posted By

Smallest Forest

Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

2010

15 projects · 31 followers

these beads feature little 'pages' that you can turn

using a bookbinding technique associated with children's board books, these little beads have pages that fan out to give them their 3D shape...but each page still turns and functions like a page in a book.

Made larger, these could be used as ornaments for the tree or whatever. You could also skewer them onto satÃ© sticks instead of stringing them, and form little paper ball topiaries or cupcake toppers or whatever.

The pages could be pre-printed with a custom design or message, or you could draw individually on each page, or write on them. You could also incorporate other bookbinding techniques like adding pop-ups to the tiny pages, for a really sick little bead.

So go on now and make something! It is later than you think.

Crafts

Papercraft

Instructions

Project Cost: Almost Nothing

1

Cut your paper shapes out. You'll need at least 16 pcs.; you can try using more, but remember you need pairs of them.
I'm using a shape punch called "vinca" The diameter of the shape is the diameter of the bead. This is slightly less than an inch in diameter.
2

Fold each shape in half, each side must match up symmetrically to the other side of the shape.
3

Take two pieces at a time, and glue them to each other, one folded side to the other folded side. If you started with 16 pieces of the shape, you'll have 8 of these pictured units, now.
4

Again, take two of the units just created, and glue one 'page' to a 'page' from its partner unit. You have 4 units now, and each unit has 5 'pages'. You get the idea, keep going, pairing units off.
5

And so on and on, until you are down to the last two units, and when you glue a page from each of these units together, you are left with one thick stack of little pages.
6

Next, spread glue over the front page of your 'book' and bring the last page around and join them together...creating a torus or ring of pages, with no start or finish.

And you're all done!