Each bead in every piece of BeadforLife jewelry is hand cut, rolled, and totally
unique. The process of taking a recycled poster or magazine page and making it
into a beautiful, glossy piece of jewelry is one that takes time, hard work,
attention to detail and a great deal of skill. We followed Grace, one of our most experienced Beaders through the steps.
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1. First Grace chooses her paper, scrutinizing
each page for colors and patterns that will
make beautiful beads. She thinks about what
shape and size bead she would like to make
and traces and cuts the pattern to create either
short and round
beads or slim and
long ones.
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2. Each piece of paper is a long thin triangle.
Grace then begins rolling each piece, starting
with the blunt, thick end of each triangle.
She deftly rolls it tightly in her fingers. She is
very attentive to the symmetry of the rolling
so that the bead is perfectly curved.
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3. When she finishes each bead, she puts a
small dab of glue at the end to hold the bead
together. In this photo you will see that
Grace has rolled the bead around a needle to
keep the hole in the middle of the bead a
consistent size.
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4. Finally Grace has finished one bead. She
will now varnish each bead, pair it with small
glass beads, and string it into a necklace,
bracelet, or pair of earrings. Although each
bead takes only 30 seconds to roll, the whole
process of making each item may take 2 weeks from start to finish.
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Although Grace makes creating attractive, good quality beads look easy it is
harder than you think. Each piece of jewelry that BeadforLife presents on behalf
of each of the Beaders is completed with great care and love, and is a small
piece of art.
The women have a great deal of practice and experience in bead rolling, but they
always love to see when others try to make their beads! On their behalf, we
would like to invite you to give bead rolling a try!
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