Cute Polymer Clay Beads!

Have you ever wanted to make your own cute beads? Apparently polymer clay is the way to do it! I tried my hand at these yesterday and finished lacquering them this morning. I am so happy with them! Of course I am a novice (probably always will be at this craft), but I still feel like it's an achievement to make them.


I learned how to make them from some video tutorials online. You can pretty much search for them on youtube or google and find them. For these beads, I used white polymer clay. After baking them I painted them with acrylic paint. At that point they really do look a little dull and chalky. But, once the acrylic lacquer is sprayed on them, they come to life! It truly is an amazing difference. I wish I had taken a picture of them before I lacquered them. I will next time. So what do I plan on doing with these little cute beads? I have a few ideas floating around in my head.

I thought about putting them in my shop on etsy, but, I really cannot compete with the other extraordinary bead makers that specialize in it. So, that idea was out. But... I am thinking about attaching some themed beads to crochet dolls. Of course they wouldn't be intended for children because the beads pose a choking hazard, but older kids would like them! Maybe even matching bracelets that go with the dolls? Oh the possibilities....

Another idea was to ship them to my Aunt Robin in Quincy, Ca. She owns a salon and I'm pretty sure some pre-teen/teenagers might like cute food beads like this. That also reminds me, I need to start working on some fall jewelry to send her. The jewelry I sent last year is selling slowly, but not all of it. It's more of a summer collection so hopefully some of it will sell this summer. I probably should ask her to mark it down ha ha.

Anyway, if you are interested in making some of these I'll give you a list of the notions I used.

Notions:

• white polymer clay
• sculpting needle tool
• craft wire (for fastenings)
• beads
• acrylic paint
• paint brushes
• acrylic lacquer spray
• convectional oven

That's all I have for now. But I hope you enjoyed this blog post. It was really fun to share this idea with all of you! Take care and enjoy creating stuff.