I had an idea.
I bought the Vogue September 2013 issue this year. I was done with it and I was going to recycle it. But then I thought, hmmm, maybe I could do something with this.
I wanted to turn this massive tome into a garment somehow. But how.
My sister gave me a little craft set for making paper beads. Hmmm again. Could I turn this entire Vogue September 2013 issue into paper beads? I decided to give it a go.
So I kept on rolling. And rolling. And rolling. The metal rod you see is one of the mandrels I use for lampworking.
All the beads are done. Now what. How to assemble this into a garment. I wanted to keep this as an art piece I could maybe hang on the wall as well as a potentially wearable thing. I was thinking "Elizabethan collar" for some reason. But that needed a lot of architecture and I'm not that skilled. So I decided to make a boa. A paper bead boa. I Googled it, and I couldn't find anything. If you've made one before this, please let me know. Proof as of this writing: only one Google result!
After a couple misfires, I settled on a technique I learned from the fabulous artist Stephanie Sersich. I braided a core of cotton string, then I did a circular macrame stitch around that core to form the "spine" of the garment. Like this. It's about 8 feet long.
And here it is. By the way, it weighs about 3 pounds.
March 29, 2014 update: I have a few new photos, taken by my hubby. I submitted my paper bead boa for the Weatherspoon Art Museum's Art on Paper 2014 show. Wish me luck!