Thursday, September 5, 2013

Another entry in the hollow bead sweepstakes

Lightweight, fast, and easy...making big hollow beads in angular shapes is easy with print-cut-fold-and-tape PDFs.
Six shapes on five sheets: 3- and 4-sided diamonds, cubes, pillows, pyramids, and 4-sided long cylinders are available for download from this page. (They are free because I did not invent geometry! I just put them on a page you can download and print.) The sheets have one or two shapes on them, and some have more than one size on a sheet.

Carol Simmons and I experimented with shapes and finishing styles on the beads we're modeling below. We made a bunch at a recent retreat and turned them into a temporary necklace. It was dismantled and now we each have an assortment of beads that we'll mix with others. A few of my other experiments are below. 

Go download the templates and let me know how they work for you. I do not guarantee that they are flawless -- hole punch spots may be slightly off so "fold first, punch holes later" and if you find mistakes, let me know. Basic directions are on each sheet. All suggestions and questions are welcome!






This is all four sides of a single bead made with the 4-sided diamond template.






5 comments:

  1. Wow! This is so generous of you to share these! The beads are all lovely! I love the etched canes. Also cool was the fact that I could download from your Dropbox directly into mine. I didn't know that was possible.

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  2. Very cool idea and it's a good springboard for exploration. I love your comment: “They are free because I did not invent geometry!”

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  3. The shapes are awesome, Rebecca. I was a little confused at first with the arrows, etc., but I figured it out and covered most of them with scrap clay. My question would be how to cover with a veneer without getting tons of fingerprints (trying to join the edges of the pyramid or diamond, for example) and having to sand forever. When you make the beads you antique, how do you avoid paint ending up in fingerprints, etc.? Thank you so much for sharing those PDFs!!

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    1. I have covered the forms with a thin layer of clay and cured it first, just to hold the shape. Then I covered them with thicker pieces of clay to make the outer layer. I don't get hyper about the occasional fingerprint...I don't care if someone knows an actual human made the bead they're looking at.

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