Paper Bangles

Would you like to learn how I make my Paper Bangles?

Well, the waiting is over! The online class is live and ready for you now!

What do you do when you’re under a lot of stress and you just need to get yourself centred again?
Me, I play with paper constructions. This could be making boxes, I love making boxes! or…

Paper Jewellery!

And so it was this past month, all I was getting is a lot of tech stress!
It all started when I had to replace my (very old) computer, and you know what that means; lots of work setting things up again, finding passwords and software keys and none of my programs were the same anymore, the updated versions were a learning curve as well!

And then I decided to move my Making Mobiles online course to another platform! Phew, trying to find my way around there! It took some doing and it did my head in at times.

So... to calm myself down I play with paper... Breathe... Relax…
Creativity has been my lifeline for years!

I started off simply by making beads, I've been making beads for many, many years, and out of all kinds of materials, I love making beads!!!

But then something caught my eye, the off-cuts from my cutting machine and the way they had accidentally fallen together on the table sparked a whole new line of thinking!

I needed to scale up from beads! I wasn't too sure what form this would take until I woke up one morning and it hit me; I was going to make bangles!

Very often this is what gets me out of bed in the morning, some creative spark that won't give me any peace.

I didn't even get dressed, I just designed the first bangle by wrapping some stiff paper around my arm, determined the width and made a pattern. Then squashed that pattern down to make the narrow layer that would go on top, drew up the design on my iPad, sent it to my cutting machine, and cut enough strips to keep me happily experimenting for that week!

But then nothing would go right, so much trial and error, and it had seemed so simple in my head!

Fast-forward 2 weeks later, I had sorted my techniques and was making my first official samples (that I hoped wouldn't end up in the bin!) I kept the colour palette to black & white and had fun making the papers and then seeing them on the bangles! I bet you know the feeling too, when your vision finally comes to life, there's just no feeling like it!

I probably would have made a few more and then moved on to something else, except that I posted the finished work on Insta & Facebook, where a friend saw it and suggested I make these into an online class...

I thought that was a good idea so I thought I would post them to my gelli printers group and see what people there thought about them. They loved them! What a special feeling it is when a group of your peers love what you’re showing them!

I got so many requests and DMs to make a class that I decided I would just go ahead and do it! I've got a clean table somewhere and it'll be a short class, not like the dramas I had filming the Mobiles Course!

if you are interested in learning how to make your own
Paper Bangles
It is all ready for you now!