Introduction: Book Bead Earrings

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About: I love trying to come up with a new life for trash!
Wanting to incorporate books into jewelry, I came up with this idea. This Instructable shows how to make a paper cone bead out of an old book and how to attach them together to make a cube-like shape that is the center point of my earrings.  I also show how to bead-it-up.

Step 1: Supplies

Supplies for book-cone beads:
  • Mod Podge
  • Tacky glue
  • 1" circle punch (or any size you prefer)
  • brush
  • scissors
  • book that's in bad shape that you don't mind cutting up
  • scrap paper to use as a place mat
  • paper clips


Supplies for turning the beads into earrings:
  • large needle or safety pin
  • tweezers
  • flat nose pliers
  • round nose pliers
  • broken disco ball ornament/ gems/ sequins (anything to add a little bling to your beads- 12 pieces)
  • small beads (I used 48 square 3/16" beads; 6 of each color)
  • large beads (I used 8 cube 1/4" beads; 2 of each color)
  • 2 earring hooks
  • 6- 3/4" flat head pins
  • 10- 3/4" jump rings (smaller would work too)
  • 2- 3/4" eye pins
  • 6- 2" eye pins

Step 2: Mod Podge Pages Together

  1. Find a good looking page in your old book- I used Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut- it is missing pages and in pretty bad shape so it is perfect to craft with. 
  2. Brush on a thin but consistent coat of Mod Podge on both sides (left and right) of your book so that you have covered 2 pages entirely. 
  3. Sandwich those 2 pages together and smooth it out.   
  4. Let dry in front of a fan or in the sun.
  5. Once dry, flip over the Mod Podged pages that are now glued together and do the same thing again so that you have 3 or 4 pages all Mod Podged together.
  6. Make sure they totally dry before continuing.

Step 3: Punch Circles

  1. Using a 1” (or any size) circle cutter, punch 12 circles out of your dried Mod Podged page. Select areas that have words that catch your eye.

Step 4: Cut and Glue Circles

  1. Make a slit to the center of each circle
  2. Overlap one side over the other at the slit (about 1/2 inch)
  3. Glue it down to form a cone-like shape on each circle- making 12 cones
  4. Use a paper clip to hold the cone together and let dry

Step 5: Dress Up Your Book Bead

  1. Dab some glue in the center and put a gem stone or sequin in it to dress up your book bead. I had a small disco ball ornament that got crushed so I peeled some tiny glass squares off of that and glued them on. I figured that was a good use for a broken ornament and I liked that the square mirrors would match the square beads I'm using. (I originally did this step towards the end but I realized it made more sense to do it at this step)
  2. Use tweezers to place the gem in place

Step 6: Double Up

  1. Take 2 cones and glue them together on their side. Do this with all your cones creating 6 doubled cones.
  2. Use paper clips to hold them together
  3. Let dry a little before moving on

Step 7: Glue 2 Sets of Doubled Cones Together

  1. Glue 2 sets of doubled cones together- creating 2 sets of 4 cones all glues together
  2. Paper clip them

Step 8: Glue the Last Doubled Cones to the Sets

  1. Glue the last 2 doubled cones to the sets- now all your cones are glued together to make 2 cube-like shapes. Each one has 6 little cones all glued together. All the pointy parts of the cones are touching. These are the base parts of your pair of earrings.
  2. Paper clip them together and let dry.

Step 9: Pierce a Hole

  1. Decide which side of each cube you would like to use as the front of your earring.
  2. With that side facing you, pierce a hole on the bottom, top, left, and right of both cubes. (Ignore that I have thread hooked to my needle.) Use a needle or safety pin to pierce.

Step 10: Add Jump Rings and Eye Pins

  1. Thread jump rings through the pierced holes in each cube
  2. Before closing the jump rings, hook an eye pin to the bottom, left and right jump rings
  3. Close the jump rings with flat nose pliers
  4. Add beads to the eye pin (I created a pattern using eight 3/16 square beads per eye pin- baby blue, amber, gold, dark blue, red, iridescent blue, green and fuchsia)
  5. Using round rose pliers, curl the tip around and make an eye to close the end
  6. Do this to all 3 eye pins on each cube

Step 11: Add Dangly Beads

  1. Take a 3/4" flat head pin and thread on a larger bead (I used 1/4" cube beads in green, lime and sky blue)
  2. Using the round nose pliers, curl the tip of the flat head pin around, just like you did in the previous step
  3. Before closing it off, hook it to the bottom of the beaded eye pin
  4. Close it using the flat nose pliers
  5. Do this to the bottom of all 6 of the beaded eye pins

Step 12: Hookin' It Up!


You are almost finished!
  1. Remember that hole you pierced on both cubes back in step 9? Thread a jump ring through it.
  2. Attach a 3/4" eye pin to the jump ring.
  3. Thread a larger bead on to the eye pin
  4. Use the round nose pliers and curl the top of the eye pin, closing it off
  5. Tread a jump ring through the eye and put an earring hook on the jump ring
  6. Close the jump ring
  7. Finished!