Roll up, roll up

I've been making paper beads for just a few months, inspired by these fabulous ones a friend brought back from Tanzania.

The Tanzanian originals are made of very thin paper and seem like they have several coats of varnish: they must take ages, both to roll and paint, but the effect is lovely.  

Mine are neither as colourful nor as glossy, but I do like the colours (the paper was an East bag).  I'm still working on getting mine as robust as the original - two coats of varnish rather than just one definitely help, I should probably do 3, but for me the pleasure is in rolling, which is therapeutic, rather than varnishing which is just sticky.

One of the things I like about wearing paper beads is that they are incrediby light to wear so there's no likelihood of taking someone's eye out with a swish of the beads.