Rolled, Nail Polished and Strung

After "nail polishing" the handmade paper beads in yesterday's post, it's now time to see how they look when they're combined with more conventional beads.

I've got to say I am pretty pleased with the way the beads work together and I'm even more pleased with how well this piece sits when worn.

I ended up using two different shades of nail polish: the gorgeous burgundy colour you saw me paint with in yesterday's tutorial and also a mica filled silver. The silver is almost transparent so whilst you see the beautiful glimmer from the mica, you also get to see the magazine print on the beads. It's an interesting look.

I also left some of the beads uncoloured because they coordinated well with the aquamarine Kashmiri beads I've used in this piece. You can just see one at the top of this image.... sorry I cut the rest of it off!

I love the daisy spacers connecting the beads together. There are no holes in them though so I had to get creative to attach them. Large oval shaped jump rings worked well for the body of the necklace but the challenge was really in how to attach the focal magenta paper bead and the dangles. I solved the problem by joining two vine shaped connectors (very appropriate for a flower) together with jump rings so that one sits flush with the front and one sits flush on the back of the flower spacer. It's difficult to make it out in the photo below but they're connected through the hole in the centre and also on the outside edge.

But this left me with a jump ring that is sitting horizontally and not vertically. So instead of using an eyepin to connect the next section I used a head pin with a 3mm silver bead on it to act as a stopper inside the horizontal jump ring! Then it was just a matter of threading on the gorgeous magenta focal bead (one of my special pick ups from CHA), turning a loop and connecting the beaded chains.

So what do you think? Who would have thought paper beads could look so good!

'Til next time.....

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