Book Beads

these beads feature little 'pages' that you can turn

Posted by Smallest Forest

About

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 saté 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.

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You Will Need (3 things)

  • Your choice of Paper
  • symmetrical Shape Punch eg. "vinca" or "circle"
  • PVA Glue

Steps (6 steps, 40 minutes)

  1. 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. 2

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

  3. 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. 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. 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. 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!