Community-based Paper Beading in Romblon

A group of women in Sugod, Romblon, Philippines called the Payawpao Orchids made these beautiful handcrafted paper bead things. The group is supported by The Meaningful Shop an online store that supports the crafting of women from developing countries. The store is both a non-profit-organization as well as a fair trade org. They also support a group of women in Uganda.

Here are some of the women as they work on their beads. They also have a child sponsorship program where people can help in sending the children to school.

handmade paper bead bag

All the products in the shop are completely 100% fair trade! For now, there are five ladies in the group. Soon enough, when the group is making enough for themselves, more women will be invited. The goal basically so that they will have enough livelihood to help the women send their children to school.

handmade paper bead container

handmade paper bead stacks

It's a an ingenuous way of bringing the skills and talent of the community of Sugod together while helping them provide for their family. If you wanna know about the org more, do check out their website: http://www.meaningfulshop.org

Making your own paper beads

Here basics on making your own paper beads! So start collecting all scrap paper all over the house and start rollin'! (paper beads that is)

Materials that you will need are the following:

• colorful magazine or posters
• scissors
• pen
• ruler
• needle or toothpick
• varnish
• clear varnish
• fishing wire/nylon wire

Cut 4 inch by 1 inch triangles out of magazines or colored paper. Choose colors that you like.
Just put a bit of glue to the pointy end of the triangle. A glue stick or a tiny bit of liquid glue will do fine. From the wide end, you may use a bamboo stick, a toothpick or a ink tube from pens to roll the paper shaped into a triangle to a cylindrical bead shape. You can make the spiral symmetric with the middle if you try or let it tend to one side. Just make sure the narrow end sticks tight and the beads are kept rolled up. Apply more glue if necessary. Slide the bead of the stick. Brush the beads with a solution of glue and water (one part glue and two parts water). Dry the beads. You can hang then on a string to dry. Make sure they don't stick to anything while it's drying. Yay! Now you're ready to bead!


You can push your creativity as far as you can with the beads. Art Fire came up with this beautiful set of painted beads!

Chinese paper beads from Crafty Stylish!

Paper Jewelry Rocks!

Very nice...I love all things wrapped in wires. This will be so pretty on my ears! Paper beads wrapped in brass wire from Sockpr0n


Here are some super creative, interesting and inspiring ideas of putting those garbage to use. Elegant, and exciting paper bead jewelry all over. Above is a purse made of paper beads. I got this photo from Paper Bead Girl. I encourage you to visit their site. They have an amazing collection of creative paper bead use.



Very elegant bracelet which is a combination of brass guitar string and pages from a French History book from Craft Stylish!


This one's inspired by the story of Aesop from Paper Beads. This was made for the celebration of Earth Day. Here the beads were coated to with Diamond glaze to give it that laminated glossy look.

I found the bracelet you see ove from Chronicles. The beads are baby pictures of new borns in the family and was given as a gift to a mom-slash-granny.

Paper Beads Galore

Beautiful rolled paper beads. This is going to be my next jewelry project. I found these images while I was searching about making paper beads. They're super innovative and pretty.





Recently I've been excited about making beads out of recyclable materials. Here are some paper bead ideas that I'd like to share with you.

North Luzon Trade Fair in Megamall

Went to the Megamall the other day, the Trade Fair happening for North Luzon producers. Products vary from furniture, food, accessories and clothes. Anyway, it seems really interesting. I would love to say more but I only got a glimpse of it since I was in hurry when I passed by. I think it'll be there for a while so for those who wants go, go for it! Please check it out and tell me about it. I'll have to wait for typhoon, Peping to pass by before I go out of the house again. In any case, you will definitely see something here next week.

Stay dry and warm this weekend.

I'm Back!

Hello Everyone,

I've been missing is action but now I am back again. I've been in one place to another with one preoccupation after another in the past few months. My fingers have been longing for those moments of smooth stones against my finger tips .

So here I am again back to twirl, stretch, fold wires. Weave, glue, stitch stones or beads for that matter and expect some more creations from in the next weeks to come.

<3,
L

Sacred Amulet

This bracelet is made of sweet smelling sandalwood beads. A very special bracelet given to me by beautiful friend Nilu. She sent this to me from Colombo, Sri Lanka, where she is from. and I have worn the bracelet since I got it. Besides, it's the first ever package that I got from Sri Lanka (that alone makes it that special.)

The beads posses a powerful protective, anti-septic force but what makes it extremely special is that the beads are the same as those used in the prayer chains of Rishis, yogis and Buddhist monks. One can easily sense its energy when touched.

When I was kid I thought, I wanted to be a nun (being born from a Catholic family.) When I got older, I thought I wanted to become a monk at least the spiritual life that monks live. I guess these beads reminds me everyday of this.

I love you Nilu! Thank you so much!

Hooray to them Handmades!

Making jewelry is something that came out naturally to me. It relaxes me and I zone out when I am in the process of doing anything creative. When I realized that I made more than enough jewelry that I can wear. I knew I needed to do something about it. It just seems awfully wrong to wear all of them by myself.

My friend Ivy encouraged me to create a blog for the stuff that make which I did. It's fun to share ideas and projects with people.

So I finally set up my Etsy shop (on the advice of some friends.) I didn't know about Etsy before. First, I never thought of selling stuff that I make. Please please check out the shop at Hotbeadsdesigns.etsy.com to see more of my stuff. I also linked this blog to the shop as you see at the let side of this page. Simply click it and it will bring you there. Second, I never tried selling.

For people who are not so familiar with Etsy yet, let me a give you a little background about what Etsy is. Etsy users are all over the world. Right now, they are mostly more popular in North America but it continues to gain more attention all over the world. Etsy is an online marketplace for buying and selling all things handmade. (Yay! I'm a huge fan of handmades! I am home!)

Etsy Mission - To enable people make a living making things, and to reconnect makers and buyers.
Etsy Vision - To build a new economy and present a better choice. Buy, Sell and Live Handmade.

I am loving Etsy! You can find the most interesting and awesomely fun stuff that you cannot find anywhere else in the world. When I give gifts, I always try to find the most unique and creative things that I can find. Etsy is definitely a place to find these - jewelry, art, clothes, accessories, art materials, graphic designers, vintage items, pottery, toys. You can find everything you need or want with there over 100,000 Etsy sellers all over the world.

More than that, I am loving the whole idea of bringing the directly connecting the sellers and buyers. I think their concept, Buy, Sell and Live Handmade is very simple yet amazingly ingenuous.

In the Philippines though, we have the multiply(.com) where by the way, I made a Hotbeads site too. It is not however fully developed. I didn't realize that as simple as these site may seem. It is still a lot of work. Although, multiply is not necessarily all handmade but there are definitely many sellers who does their own stuff. Multiply is perfect in finding good stuff from local sellers especially in Manila.

Earrings from India!

New Earrings!!!

vintage wired Corales beads, Shell earrings, and vintage wired torquoise bead

So I finally know what kind of beads the red ones are. They are Corales beads thanks to the people at the D.I.Y. shop in Quiapo who were very help to help list down all the types of beads and stones that I got from. I didn't realize that finding this information online is not going to be easy.

Kikay Critques

Today, I showed a my blog to Jowan and Aza (who makes jewelries as well.) I'm glad they liked my work. These two artists are friends whose crafts I look up to. They are my batch mates in art school.

They both liked my Cherries and silvers earrings. It's good because, it's one of my favorite too!My friends have the perfect taste! Jo asked me how much the earrings are amd screams, 'WOW!' over yahoo messenger. I asked, 'Wow what?' She goes, 'It's perfect for my boho skirt!' It's interesting how some of my good friends are such Kikays!

A part of me wants to keep all of the pieces that I'm doing because they are my first works. I've always been possessive when it comes to art that I create. I know I have to work on this. Money and art is something that I seriously have to come to terms with. Urgh!

I've been working on more wires entangling these days. Still need to take photos of them. I know you'll love them so stay tuned!

Yndia Jewelry by Tin-tin and Arnel

Ligaya's shell and xiangjiang jade necklace

Xiangjiang Jade and shells are primarily what this 3-tier necklace is made of. Ivy (Beadsnob) modeled this necklace for me last week in her Bead Styling post last week. Arnel Ramiscal and Christine Sioco (Tin-tin) who I met at the KASIBULAN Christmas party early December inspired this necklace. I saw a work that they did with white stones and it was really beautiful. It reminds me of wedding jewelries.

The artist couple (who, by the way, are engaged to be married. Congratulations!) also creates beautiful beadworks that you can check out at their multiply site arnel & tin-tin called Yndia Jewelry. Their bead works are elaborate combinations of different types of stones.

Arnel's necklace made of Moss Agate, Jade, Green Turquoise, Flourite & Cat's eye

Yndia Jewelry's name is derived from the name of a Yndia a babaylan (shaman) from the 1st century colonial period. The jewelry designs are incorporated with the “Batek” or “Traditional Tattoos” of the indigenous northern part of Luzon in the Philippines. These represented or became symbols of nobility, courage and beauty for them and are especially used during rituals and cremonies.

Arnel's Amethyst necklace

Greatly inspired by indigenous jewelry traditions and with a conscious intention to revive indigenous art, Arnel and Tin-tin took their beadwork into a more contemporary aesthetic by incorporating different types of stones and playing with textures and colors. Although, their work may not necessarily be in rituals (alone) Arnel says that Yndia jewelry is really good to wear while meditating because of the calming effects of the stones they use.