http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Paper-Beads/

Hello, I have a great blog on my new projects, and current goings on with Mzuribeads.  Please read and see some fantastic things a:

ethicsgirls.co.uk

Kirstie

Stella Atal Ugandan Fashion Designer

Ethical, recyled fashion accessories

What it says:

Kirstie MacLean, 24, Glasgow Mzuribeads www.mzuribeads.com

A PERSONAL favourite of Heather’s Kirstie MacLean’s bead business is flourishing.

While on a 2006 trip to Uganda, Kirstie and her brother, Angus, stumbled across village women making beads using paper and magazines, Kirstie, who was volunteering at a school at the time, admitted: “I thought these beads were amazing.” Before long, Kirstie had joined them and spent three months working alongside the bead-makers. The beads are made using triangular strips from magazines which are rolled tightly around a needle, before being varnished. When she came back to Scotland, Kirstie brought several different types of paper beads and sold them. Identifying this as a profitable handmade jewellery business, Kirstie, who works from home, imports the beads and every few months travels back to Uganda. Now her Mzuribeads fly off the shelves at craft fairs and she has 10 stockists in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and has never looked back. Kirstie, 24, said: “At the Scottish Bead Fair in August, we sold everything we had. We also planning to go to the Big Bead Show. “This is just the beginning” …”I am trying to get this jewellery business away from being this mediocre African craft thing and establish ourself as a professional handmade jewellery business. “We are not a charity, we are looking for professional individuals looking to work with other professional individuals. “Just because these women are in a Ugandan village doesn’t mean to say their skills and their product are anything less than the standard of what is being sold in the shops that we sell to.” And it’s not just jewellery that Mzuribeads sells but purses, bags, belts and beaded door curtains, too. Kirstie took the plunge and, after completing one term of a community education degree course, dropped out to pursue her dream. ‘We are not a charity, we are looking for professional people to work with other professionals

Christmas with African recycled necklaces

We are a Uganda/Uk Co-op who hand roll paper beads out of used magazines. We cut each page into triangular strips and roll them around a needle. The colour of the bead is thus determined by the colour of the magazine page. Each bead and piece of jewellery is one of a kind.

Mzuribeads is a cooperation of female jewellers who live in the village of Ndejje in Uganda. Three people from the UK are involved; Kirstie, Angus, Dawn and Victoria, who help design and transport our goods to UK markets.