Blue tiger beads- paperbeads

I'm really liking the paper beads thing. It's a cheap gift I can pretty much give anyone, but it's "special" cheap. All the beads take time and thought and more time. Yes, they're extremely time consuming.
Measure the paper, line it, decorate it (if that's one of your steps), cut it, roll it, glaze it, glaze it again, and for my projects... add the wire mount.
But if I want to send my niece a nice cute couple of stretch bracelets... we have to admit it my be cheap, but it's hours of love.
The other day, I was at a dollar store looking for some stationary paper with a fun repetative print I could use for the beads. I love the magazine ones but I wanted something a little more repetitive. I found one with purple flowers all over it. It  was cute. So I had 40 sheets of stationary (they call it computer paper but it's so thin my imaginary printer would have eaten it and still not clogged up) paper for 1$.
I planned on making half inch beads. The paper was 11" high so that's 11x2=22 strips. Each strip is cut diagonal into a triangle so there's actually 2 beads made out of every strip. So that means 44 beads per piece of paper. After 44 beads and not taking into consideration the border of the paper was the color I wanted, but not the middle (made 38 light light purple with a thin dark purple strip down the middle, 2 upper half dark purple and lower half light light purple, and 4 dark purple), I was pretty much done with that paper.
But I still had 39 pieces of paper to go.
Out of curiosity, I pulled out my kids washable markers and scribbled all over the white side of the paper, then cut it up like I did with the previous beads, then rolled them up. Because the markers were washable, the glue actually made the colors bleed into each other when I went to roll them. I LOVED how they turned out.
I had previously watched a video on how to color beads and the girl said it pretty much doesn't matter what you color the inside of the triangles. It's the color on the outer edges that counts. I knew I wanted two colors but I didn't want to take the time to color edges of triangles and scribbling didn't cover all of the edges.
That's when I decided to measure out my triangles using markers to sketch the cut lines. Then I drew lines in a darker color vertically across the paper. It ended up with some pretty awesome blue tiger striped beads.
I'm gonna show you how to make them now that I wrote a book on how I found out how to make these.

You need
1 piece of white paper
A package of washable markers (preferably with thick tips)
A ruler
Scissors
Elmers glue
Diamond glaze or clear nail polish
Toothpics
Bead roller is optional but I think the toothpicks did a wonderful job. 

Grab your sheet of paper. Going up the tall side of the paper, make a mark at even lengths using the main color choice of your bead. I chose every 1/2 inch. Do the same thing on the opposite side. If there is a portion of the paper that is not long enough, mark it so you don't cut it. (Third picture)

The bottom of the paper does have to be lined because this part will show on your first bead. Just line it with a thick line of marker the color you want your beads. I made my lines maybe 1/8 of an inch wide. The easiest way to do it is get a thick tipped marker. Now line from the bottom corner to the opposite side's first mark. From that mark, line to the first mark on the other side. Continue in this pattern till you have a zig zag up the paper.  Because these are washable markers, some wet color may stick to the ruler. As you move the ruler up the paper you could get streaks like I had. These don't mater because it's only the edges of the triangle that you'll see and you want your paper to be that color anyways.

The stripes on your paper will have to be darker than the main color of the bead if you're going to do this the way. I chose black. If you want camo beads, do a green base with brown and black as your stripes. To make the stripes, you just go down the paper in lines vertically with that color.


Now for the part I hate the most... cutting. When you cut, cut right in the middle of your blue line. This way there is blue on both sides because you need blue on both long lengths of the triangles. If you cut too deep into a line and don't have enough blue on one side, just quickly add a little blue there. Not a lot is needed though because as you roll the bead, only a little of each level will show. Halfway through the paper I was done lining so I only had to cut 24 ;p


Now you get to roll the beads. I used a toothpick to start but after about 3-4 rolls I slipped it off the toothpick and held the edges to roll it. I just found it easier. But you can keep it on the toothpick if you want. As you roll, make sure the the paper is in the middle as you roll it or you will have a very lopsided bead.
(I had to get the picture of Dr. Rizzo in there.)

When you get to the end of the bead, put a dab of glue on your finger and roll it over the thin end in the middle of your bead. How faded you want this bead is how much glue you use. I used enough to cover the whole  bead on a few of them and the rest I used just enough to cover the middle. Because the markers are washable and the glue is liquid, where you roll the glue will fade a little depending on how much you rub the glue there. But don't worry, the blue won't come fully off. It will just be lighter there. And if this makes the whole bead too light for you, let it dry and do the glaze on this one. The glaze will make it darker but it's better to know now than to do the whole batch this way and end up with 40+ beads you don't want. Also, please remember to wash your hands. The glue also picks up the color and gets it all over your fingers. Thank God for washable markers!

The beads in the above picture have not been glazed yet. You will see the difference in color after even just the first glaze. Your beads will not turn out that white... unless you went crazy with the glue.
Now for the glazing process. Again, I used clear nail polish. I still can't find the diamond glaze in stores here. In case you didn't see my other "paper bead how-to", this is where you use the toothpicks the most. They hold the bead up while the glaze is drying.
After the first glaze... Seeeeee, not so white. Sorry the other beads are in there also. I had just done their second glaze. And the foam under it is a Halloween tombstone I got at the dollar store.. holds a ton of beads up for me :) High five for being thrifty cheap!
And after the second glaze... Some of the beads sit on the top of the toothpick because I hand roll. If you keep it on the toothpick while rolling, some may slide on you. In this case, put a little polish on the toothpick under the bottom of the bead. It will hold the bead up but not permanently keep the bead on the toothpick.

Now for the final result after blinging them out with wires...

Available on Etsy here

  

 
If you want to know how to make the hidden clasp like this, let me know and I'll message you about it. It will probably be another how to later on. :) Extremely easy to do.