Today I'm continuing to show casual summer outfits and DIY paper bracelet sets as I started in my last post with two dark blue outfits. This time I'm focusing on shades of light blue. With each bracelet set, I will also show the magazine and/or catalog pages I upcycled to create them to provide some more examples of how a page becomes a bead in the paper bead making process
Outfit #1
Striped tops make for such easy print mixing, and this teal and white striped T is no exception. The koi print scarf has both the teal as well as the lighter mint color of the skimmers, and it brings in orange as a second accent color.
My bracelet stack consists entirely of DIY pieces: 3 paper bead, 2 stone bead, 1 glass bead, and 2 mixed metal spacer bead bracelets. I made this set with a smaller bead size in mind...in the 3-4 mm range. The aqua cube and round beads are magnesite, and the teal beads are glass pearls. I already had the two mixed metal spacer bead bracelets that I made to wear with seed bead bracelets. I made the paper bead set to wear with a skirt I have with aqua/teal and orange in the print.
The orange tube beads were made from an orange ikat dress image from a Coldwater Creek catalog. The small print rolled up nicely into beads, which I painted on the ends with gold metallic acrylic paint.
Yes, I picked another COVID-related drawing from The Economist magazine for bicone beads. I usually make 1" bicones but decided to do 0.5" to fit with the overall theme of "smaller." You'll notice that the final beads are not completely regular in size, but it really doesn't matter! The lack of standardization in the beads is just a part of the hand-made, organic feel you get with paper beads.
These skinny 1" bicone beads were among the first one I ever made (before I figured out to make beads with specific projects in mind), and I don't remember what the original image looked like. But I was glad to find a use for them in this bracelet set.
Outfit #2
The sky blue Hatter tank was the starting point for this outfit. I decided to step a bit further out of my black + navy comfort zone by pairing it with the floral skort that has shades of blue and navy in it. (You can see the skort better in the second outfit in this post.) I pulled out the orange/coral color from the print with the sandstone coral shirt worn as a lightweight jacket, a favorite summer layering trick. My layered necklace includes a DIY multi-strand seed bead necklace in various sky blue colors, a seed pearl/bead necklace made by my friend RB, a pearl station necklace from Loft, and a DIY silver paperclip chain with a White Rabbit pendant (to continue the Alice in Wonderland theme from the top).
This is a pretty fun bracelet stack that, like the previous one, has a mixed metals element. In addition to the two DIY paper bead bracelets, we have a larger DIY aqua magnesite bracelet with silver daisy spacers, a DIY 5mm spacer bead bracelet with 5 different metals, a rose gold bracelet from my Amazon set, and a white glass bead bracelet. I call the two paper bead bracelets my "saturated pastel" set.
For the tube beads, I once again turned to a Coldwater Creek catalog image of a print item...a pretty dress with aqua, pink, and peach. I painted the bead ends with white metallic acrylic paint to match the white glass pearls I strung them with on the bracelet. It's funny how I now mostly look at catalogs for cool pictures to make paper beads with rather than as representations of clothing I could buy. It's helped me channel my voracious love of prints into a more sustainable (environmentally and financially) method of consumption!
When I saw this full page image in The Economist magazine, I got very excited about the colors! This is a page that I could have cut vertically for longer strips or horizontally for shorter strips. I wasn't as excited at the prospect of having the grey at the bottom be as prominent as would happen by cutting vertically, so I removed the top section with the text and set myself up to cut across.
One of the trade-offs with that decision is that I didn't get all the pastel colors on each strip as I would have if I'd cut them the other direction (do you see what I mean?). This made the rolled beads less uniform in color - a few have more pink, a few have more green. But non-uniform is just fine with me, and I love how the beads turned out. The black lines from the drawing turn into an interesting speckle pattern on the beads, which is a cool effect.
Outfit #3
I have worn soft indigo with these navy citrus print crops several times, but this was my first time to pair them with my soft blue pieces...a T, cardigan, and lightweight scarf. I was happy with this combination.
Everything except the striped flats is from the same brand (CJ Banks) so it's no wonder that they work together so well. The necklace has the soft blue, mustard, and soft indigo colors from the crop pants, so it's a go-to pairing.
The citrus pants and necklace inspired this DIY bracelet set in mustard, blue, and silver, which I have supplemented with a DIY mustard glass bead bracelet (designed for this set) and my standby navy/silver bracelet from the CJ Banks set.
The first bicone bracelet started its life as a cover from The Economist magazine. This is a good example of how a bizarre image in the right color palette can make for great bicone beads! With mustard yellow on both sides and blue + grey in the middle, I knew these would roll up nicely into striped beads with mustard centers. Because it's thicker paper, I applied silver metallic marker to the long edges of the strips to cover the white paper core. Silver beads finished the bracelet beautifully.
For the tube beads, I used my typical strategy of a small scale image of a print garment from a clothing catalog...I had two copies of the mustard/blue burnout top from Coldwater Creek so it was easy to get my 12 0.5" rectangular strips. I painted the bead ends in silver metallic acrylic paint and strung them with silver-tone spacer beads.
The last page I selected for this set was a bold drake on water with a surprising golden mustard background (presumably the reflection of autumn trees in the water) from Birdwatching magazine. Nature magazines are such a wonderful source of colorful pages! For this bracelet I used navy faceted crystal beads to switch things up from the silver in the other two bracelets.
I'm really enjoying making these upcycled paper beads, and it's amazing how having a new set of bracelets brings revived interest and energy to not-new clothing and outfits.
Other posts in this series:
Are you getting tired of dressing for summer yet or is your summer style still going strong?
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