Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Go to www.beadaholique.com to purchase beading supplies and to get design ideas!
Hi this is Julie with Beadaholique.com
and I want to show you how to make a bead out of some bead caps,
some crystal clay and some mica powder. It's super easy and you're gonna love
this technique
because it's going to give you a lot of options on making your own beads
which is so much fun. I have two examples here which I have done and they're
actually drying
and you can see they're actually created on an head pin
and I'm gonna remove them from the head pin to dry but I wanted to show you
I've have got one that I used
white crystal clay with a silver mica powder
and again white crystal clay with an antique gold mica powder and it changes the
look
ever so slightly but it does give it a different look, so have fun playing with
the various colors of mica powder
and crystal clay out there for this project. I'm gonna remove these
very carefully and just
let them dry on their side and the clay itself is not actually touching the
paper here
because crystal clay does stick to everything so it's just kinda resting on
that bottom bead cap
I'm out those dry overnight and in the meantime I'm going to make a bead with you
here on the video
so I'm using crystal clay. Like I mentioned before I'm using white
you don't have to. Use whatever color you like and I'm going to pinch off
equal amounts of apart A
and Part B and for me I like to roll them into a little ball
so that I can make sure
I have equal parts and that's how I measure it. It looks like I have a little bit more
of the harder than the color
add a little bit more
those are looking pretty equal to me
put my clay away. With
a two-part epoxy clay such as crystal clay the curing process doesn't actually
start until you blend Part A and Part B
so you have plenty of time right now to store away your clay
and if you know you're going to want to make multiple beads to go in the same project
you want them to be approximately the same size go ahead and measure out equal
little balls ahead of time
just don't mix them together, so if you were doing six beads
measure out six balls of part A and six also of part B
don't combine them and then just work on one bead at time
combining one ball of A and one ball of B and you can see I'm just kneading them
in my fingers here, just really mixing it up and my goal is to get rid of all the
striations
only takes a couple minutes and it's sticky
it's all mixed up. I'm going to roll into a ball just like so. You wanna wash your
hands really good after you're doing this or you'll want to wear some gloves
take the bead cap, flip it over
and place my ball right into the bead cap
tap it down ever so slightly. I'm not gonna put a lot of pressure on it
and I'm going to take my other bead cap, line it up so it's
directly opposite. I'm just sandwiching
that Clay in between the
to bead caps forming a ball and press
ever so slightly just so it grabs it
take my head pin and insert it
through one end of the bead cap and I'm going to push it
all the way through until it comes out
the other end. Because Crystal Clay does stick to everything
I'm going to spin it. What I'm doing by spinning it is I'm actually widening that
hole
so when I wanna go ahead and use this as a bead
I can easily get my needle and thread through it or my beading wire or whatever I'm
working with
so I'm going to take a clean finger, not a sticky one
do remember you're going to want to wash your hands after this and I wanna try to
remove
any fingerprints I have on that Clay. Do that by
ever so gently swiping the tip of my finger
just on the clay just rubbing it
but I'm not stretching it and I'm not pulling it and I'm not pushing
I'm just ever so lightly brushing it
I'm going all the way around. You see my ball is rotating on my head pin
I'm gonna go a little faster
just smooth it out
it's a good thing that it's rotating. You want it to rotate. You want to widen that hole
as much as you can
the great thing about Crystal Clay is it doesn't have to be fired in a
kiln, it doesn't have to be baked in an oven and it's not going to shrink on you. It's
air dry clay. It's just gonna cure overnight on its own
which means you can add things like these bead caps too and not worry about
having to put them in the oven
not firing them. So once that is smoothed out
I now want to add my mica powder. It's a fine looking bead the way it is
but I wanna jazz it up a little bit. Mica powder
looks like this. It's a really loose fine powder almost like a
mineral eyeshadow and I have a soft brush
if you're doing this particular project it's important that you have a really soft
brush because you don't want it to streak your clay
and I'm just going to hold my bead
over the container
dip the tip of my paintbrush into the mica powder
tap it a little bit. Get rid of the excess
and I'm just gonna paint the mica powder onto the Crystal Clay
and I let the excess fall back down into the container
just pick up some more
keep painting it on
I want to get into all the cracks. You want it to rotate
go all the way around
now in terms of sealing the mica powder
you don't necessarily have to if you feel like
your piece is not going to get a lot of wear
I would not get it wet without sealing it for sure
in terms of if you do wanna seal it I would use a
clear matte sealant. It would probably be my first choice to try to keep some this
pearly luster. You can also do a gloss sealant
it will make it more shiny though but both are fine looks
and when I say I prefer not to seal it so I keep the luster
which means I won't have access to a lot of wear, I don't mean I'm not gonna wear
it and
I'm not going to enjoy it, I just mean I'm not going to take a shower with it
and it's gonna be something like an earring or a
necklace but not a ring, when you wash your hands it's gonna get knocked around a
lot
a little bit of the mica a power will come off initially if you don't seal it
but there will be a nice shiny residue still on it
but it gives it a really nice pearly look and as I've been talking
I've just been working my way around making sure I get all the little nooks
and crannies
I feel like I have, so now as my final
element here I'm just going to go ahead and really try to brush off
any extra
and we have a bead and so what I want to do with this
is I don't wanna let it dry on the actual head pin because it might stick to
it
Ever so carefully scoot it off
Ideally it'll stand up on its own
and it does. I will let it cure just like that
if it rolls to its side it's OK as long as the
Crystal Clay itself is not touching the paper but the mica powder is actually
creating a little bit of an barrier so it's not quite as sticky anymore
so if it does rollover you're probably still gonna be okay but
ideally have it dry in an upright position so that is how you make a bead
using crystal clay, sparkle dust mica powder
and some bead caps.
Go to www.beadaholique.com to purchase beading supplies and to get design ideas!