Feb 1, 2011 - It's all about Papier!

My only New Years resolution I set for myself was to try to procrastinate less. It took about a month to get caught up from all the unanswered emails, update my calendar, fill out paperwork and clear out all the texts I sent to myself the past few months reminding me to make mix CDs for my car. It's the important things in life, you see. This leaves me with coming back to the blog. I wondered why even bother, because it's grown dust on it for over a year now. Why bother? Cause it's my blog, and I wanna, that's why.

So my goal for February is to learn about jewelry. I've been collecting (see: hoarding) magazines in my guest room. To give you an idea, I subscribed to about 12 different monthly magazines. Notice that "d"? subscribed? I let them lapse because I have also procrastinated about reading said magazines. I'm about a year and a half behind. The good thing is, I'm not subscribed to, nor am I trapped by the...trappings of fashion. I'm not worried about the sweepstakes about skinny jeans I could probably fit my 11 year old self into. The only magazine we really read in this house (yes, for the articles) is Playboy. Trust me, I don't buy it for the pictures of the naked ladies. I actually think the mystery of actually wearing clothing to be more sexy than seeing some air-brushed girl trying her hardest to bulge out her big brown eyes and her childlike "no-one-is-home" gaze so the reader can try really hard to imagine the girl is nothing more than lady parts, and not an actual human being. So I can read the little bios the girls get to write, about how they like walks on the beach, the ethical treatment of animals, and boning an 84 year old man. I mean, who wouldn't right?


Soooo, jewelry. My intention with the discarded magazines was to use them to make papier jewelry. Once I decided to take action and contact a new Facebook friend (of a friend of a friend...) who has papier jewelry posted in her Facebook albums. The first thing she set me straight on is, magazines aren't actually used. It wouldn't hold up to the bead-making process. SO, if you would like to line your cockatiels cage with Better Homes and Gardens, Fingerhut and Playboy magazines, I'll give you my address. As for the jewelry, I bought the majority of my staple items at Hobby Lobby. If anybody out there likes Hobby Lobby you should know they have a 40% off a single item coupon that gets released every other week. (Makes me super confident about the lack of markup of their wares, yes?) So I had coupon in hand, bought the thread, the stock paper, the scrapbooking paper, the glass beads, the glue, the toothpicks, the acrylic...I have it all but the closures. Oh, the irony. I know, I get it.

So for now I'm cutting up the paper, and slowly rolling each bead by hand. It can be tedious, but I don't really think about it. It's exciting to be part of a creative process, acting on something I've been dragging my feet on for so long now. Each bead has it's own personality and the colors are each surprising. Kind of like tie-dye only...well, not like tie dye at all. Which rocks, by the way, cause tie-dye never really was my thang.

So here we go. 30 days posting about paper beads. Hold on tight!