Newspaper is great for making paper beads.

On it’s own, you can make nice black and off-white beads. (I say off-white because the white is never truly bright white in a newspaper.)

However, what if you want to have something a little more exciting? If you want to add custom color to your newspaper beads, you can easily color newspaper with water color paints.

To make newspaper beads colored with watercolors, start with a sheet of newspaper. I just cut out a random section. If you newspaper has color photos on it, you will want to avoid those sections because they will change the colors of your final beads. For watercolors, I just used inexpensive watercolor paints that I found at my local craft shop. I decided to use purple and yellow for this project.

Using a large paintbrush, first wet the paper down with water. Then paint one side of the paper with one color and paint the other side with your other color. The more water you add, the more translucent your paint will be. I added more water to the watercolor paints towards the center of the paper and left the edges of the paper darker.

Let your paper dry and then cut into strips for rolling into beads. In the above photo, be sure to cut cut from the top to the bottom so you get both colors in each bead. I use a paper trimmer to do this, buy you can just as easily use scissors. You’ll end up with triangles.

Roll your beads using Mod Podge and then let them dry, and you’re done! Be sure to roll carefully. I find that newspaper can be pretty fragile when I am rolling it. If it tears while rolling, just dab on a little extra glue and re-attach the torn part of the strip and finish rolling.

I really like how the colors came out with these beads.

Once they dry, you may want to seal them again with another layer of Mod Podge or with a water soluble varnish like Polycrylic.

Use your beads for your next beading project! I put my beads on an elastic cord and made a bracelet.

Enjoy!