I’ve given the doovy a whirl. In fact, a couple of whirls. I can tell you, on its own this thing requires three hands: one to hold the doovy, one to turn the handle, and one to guide the paper strip so it rolls up straight. Fortunately, the designers got around this by making it possible to screw it onto the top of a plastic bottle. They suggest using an empty bottle and storing the beads inside – there’s a little hole you can feed them through – but I found the bottle needed weight for stability so I half filled it with water.

The first batches I made using maps from an old road atlas:

The straight beads were simple enough, though I wished for a guide to help the strip of paper stay straight. The lozenge shaped beads were slower as they had to be glued all along the strip of paper, and wound carefully so the point stayed roughly central.

Next I tried some Japanese paper:

I tried making longer straight beads and then cutting them shorter, to save time. The paper wasn’t as suited to this as the book page beads I worked on later, as it tended to tear a little at the centre. It’s also a bit of a waste of nice paper, as the only bit that’s visible in the end is the last few centimetres. I also found that what is so nice about Japanese paper – the design – was lost when wound into lozenge beads as you only see a tiny bit of the edge.

Next I tried coloured paper:

They were a little plain, though colourful, so I painted the ends with black nail polish then finished them with clear nail polish. I also made some double the length of these, that I’m thinking of drawing on with a permanent pen before varnishing.

Lastly, I cut down a batch of book page beads I made previously into shorter beads and then used watercolour paint to give them a different look:

I rather like how they turned out. They’d also look great done in colour, I reckon.

So I now have a couple of batches of paper beads to try making into jewellery. I suspect that paper beads are best made by recycling paper, because if you want a coloured bead you may as well get an existing wooden bead and paint it, and nice paper like the Japanese paper I used is mostly wasted since the pattern is either obscured or only the last bit of the strip of paper is visible. Beads made of sheet music or magazine pages would work well. Perhaps even old comic book pages. I can see more paper bead making in my future, but it’s also made me want to find some beads I can paint or simply glue paper on to.

Of course, bead making may prove to be like spinning – just creates an even bigger stash to use up.