Earlier this week, when I posted pictures of my messy crafting space, you may have seen this little beauty on the floor next to my table.

This particular blue box was just delivered earlier this week and was given a spot next to my front door. Junk mail is tossed in right as it comes into the house, newspapers are added after they have been looked through, and we are working on building the habit of making sure all of our paper garbage ends up in this box as well. Having that box there makes us feel good because it means we are sending less garbage to the landfills, and we’re helping the school across the street, where we drop the paper off so they can trade it in for cash.

In addition to the benefits to the environment and the school of recycling paper, I also have the added benefit of a readily available stash of craft materials. Newspapers are good for covering tables and floors when you’re doing messy crafts, and they’re regularly listed as one of the supplies needed when following paper mache instructions. All different kinds and colors of paper can be used for making handmade paper projects. And, one of my favorites for magazine pages and other ads are paper beads.

To make paper beads, you will need:

• Paper – junk mail, wrapping paper, or other lightweight papers work best
• Glue – the plain white kind
• Sticks – toothpicks, match sticks, skewers, straws, pencils, or something else like that
• Scissors – regular straight edge scissors or decorative edge for variety

Then, you follow these simple steps:

Pick out your paper. You can try solid colors or patterned paper for various effects. We used a page from an old video game magazine.

Cut the paper into triangles approximately 1 inch wide and 2 inches long.

Starting with the largest side, roll a triangle onto your stick.

When you get near the end put a dot of glue near the tip and continue rolling. Some glue will squish out the sides, just use your finger to smear it around to make sure the bead stays together. We also discovered that it was easier to see what we were doing if we painted the glue on instead of trying to use the bottle.

Slide the bead off the stick and move onto the next triangle. So you finish with a pile of beads like this.

Of course, if you have a 3 year old your beads might end up looking a little bit more like this.

And your 6 year old might end up using the triangles to make rockets instead of beads.

For some variety you can try some of the following:

• Change the shape of the paper slightly. Longer triangles make thicker beads, wider triangles make longer beads.
• If you want your beads to last a little bit longer, try Mod Podge instead of glue for holding your beads together.
• Add glitter or coloring to your glue for interesting effects.
• After you’re all done, string the beads together for necklaces and bracelets.

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