I love to bead, I love beads, I love to buy beads. Sometimes I think that, speaking figuratively, of course, that if I couldn’t bead I’d die.
And then I heard about BeadforLife, a group of women in Uganda whose handmade beads of recycled paper are “eradicating poverty one bead at a time.” For them, beads are the way to a better life.
These industrious woman make beads and sell them, and make jewelry from their beads and sell those, along with gorgeous handmade satin-lined gift pouches, CDs of their singing, and note cards.
The proceeds of the sales are used to buy food, medicine, and pay for school fees, but it goes way beyond that. They also developed a vocational training program in an area where traditional education is simply either not available or beyond the financial reach of most and they are building a village with help from Habitat for Humanity. They also fund loans to other businesses to become as successful as they have.
The women of BeadforLife and some of their beads
You might not think it’s possible to make such beautiful beads out of paper, or such beautiful jewelry out of paper beads, but take a look:
Bangle bracelets made from paper beads
The beads and jewelry are astonishingly inexpensive, and available from their Website: http://www.beadforlife.org/
Here’s a video on the basics of making paper beads:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/video/1016/how_to_make_paper_beads.html?cat=46
And here’s step-by-step instructions:
Folds and Facets 