Enameled Paper Beads

Our May meeting was a tutorial on making enameled paper beads using a melting pot, UTEE and tiny embellishments. This is a great use of old text weight scrapbooking paper, wall paper samples, printed tissue, etc. The beads are rolled from long rectangular or triangular strips of paper and then rolled in melted Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel, like a blown glass bead. Then sprinkle with tiny glass beads or glitter and melt another layer of embossing powder on to encase them. A fun finish to the beads is melting metallic or colored embossing powder onto the ends.

I made two 3.5 inch long beads that I would like to use as doll's legs on my next doll project. These have gold mica flecks in them and copper embossing powder at the tips.

Hopefully, some of you will post your finished product or something that you have used your paper beads on.

Slider Frame Project

Maggie, Deb and I met up at Tanny's a couple of weeks ago to make these cute little slide frames. This was a project I got from Club Scrap quite awhile ago and I really liked it, but I wanted the frame to be wider so the background picture would show more. So, I modified the directions to accommodate that. I think next time we try this I'll try to get a little thicker book board so that there is room for 4 feet on the bottom. These ended up being a little narrow.

I loved Maggie's idea of putting an extra border on one corner to give it a little asymmetry. I added some flowers and die cuts and even found a little bird in my old jewelry stash.

Tanny's PaintStick Doll

Another beautiful creation by Tanny! A Paint Stick Doll. 

She's so clever!

April Luminaries

Our April meeting was a surprise project taught to us by Carroll Marohl. We were instructed to bring an old towel, a handful of nails and a small hammer. We were all perplexed as to what we would be making at this meeting. It turned out we were going to make traditional Norwegian Luminaries. Carroll had tins ready for us to punch patterns in with our handful of nails.

The secret to getting a good punch without crushing the can is to freeze water in them overnight, when you're done you just run it under warm water and out comes the ice. Also, freeze an inch of water in the bottom first then fill it up, now the bottom won't bulge out. The towel was to set your can on to catch condensation and keep the can steady.

Carroll brought several of his own luminaries to show us.












One was even done in a large popcorn tin. Very cool!












I took a picture of mine outside in the dark. I think next time I'll choose a little less intricate pattern or maybe less holes. It's a butterfly with a swirly tail.

A big thank you to Carroll for sharing this technique with us. It was fun!