My teenage cousin works at a bead shop. She’s always loved making her own jewelry, so her job couldn’t be a better fit. In addition to getting a huge discount on merchandise, she often scores overstock items for free. Last week her boss let her take home a ton of wire. My cousin is now the proud owner of five spools of craft wire ranging from 22 to 26-gauge.
She is planning to make a bunch of bracelets with her wire jackpot. In addition, she offered me a couple of spools for scrapbooking. Craft and scrapbooking shops sell special wire for scrapping, though it is really no different than what my cousin gave me. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to get my hands on the wire and have plans to use it in future layouts.
Truth be told, I don’t typically use wire in my page designs, but since I’ve acquired so much I feel compelled to add more wire embellishments. One of the easiest ways to incorporate wire into layouts is to add beads to it. Simply string beads on the wire the same way you would if you were crafting a bracelet, then make a small hole in your page and attach it to form a border. The trick to pulling off this technique is to find small, thin beads. Bulky beads can make closing your scrapbook a challenge. In addition, thick beads create ugly bumps and marks on opposing pages regardless of whether or not you use a page protector.
If you are concerned about wired beads leaving marks on your pages, then simply use the wire by itself. You can twist and bend wire strands to create a freeform page border or shape the wire by hand to spell out words that can be used to complement photos or placed at the top of the page as a title. Once you decide where you want your wire creation, add a small drop of liquid adhesive to attach it to your layout.
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