Hi there, Sandy here.
Welcome to another jewelry video at my YouTube channel and my blog.
Today I'm going to be teaching you how to make your own big hole beads for those fun
add-a-bead style bracelets that are very popular right now.
Stay tuned to the end because I have a special giveaway to announce.
So to make these beads, the first thing you will need is for every bead that you want
to make, you will need a 1/2" ball of white polymer clay.
You'll also need two of these.
These are eyelets.
You can find them usually in the scrapbooking section of your craft store and you want to
make sure they will fit over the end of whatever bracelet it is that you're using before you
start making your beads and you'll need two of those for each bead.
In addition, you will need a toothpick, a skewer stick for each bead you're going to
make.
You'll need a heat gun.
This is a tool you'll also find in the scrapbooking.
It's used for heat embossing.
It's sometimes called an embossing gun.
You'll need some liquid polymer clay.
Now I've been using this brand by Kato.
It's the only one I've tried this with and it works fine, but you may want to experiment
with other ones.
Also some alcohol inks in colors of your choice and to clean up the alcohol ink, either some
alcohol blending solution or you can use rubbing alcohol, this just works a little bit better,
and a couple of small paint brushes.
So the first thing you want to do is make sure that your balls of white clay are nice
and smooth and tight.
Nice and round and see like that one's got a crack so just roll it between your palms.
Then place it on your work surface and grab your toothpick and just start to make a hole
straight up and down with the toothpick.
Hold the bead, twirl the toothpick and then pick it up and you'll see on this side, I
don't know if you can see that.
You've got just a little flat spot from where it was on the work surface.
So just look right at the center of that flat spot and keep twirling your toothpick and
it will come out right where you're looking.
Once it's come out, pull it out, turn it around, go back in in the other direction twirling
and that starts to make our hole and now grab one of your skewer sticks and do the same
steps.
Just twirl and pierce through the bead just until it comes out and then put it back in
the other side and now you've made your bead and now all you need to do is add your bead
cores, the eyelets.
So take one of your skewer sticks and place an eyelet on the end and it should reach a
point where it won't go any further and that's perfect because now we're going to take our
bead.
This is the easiest way to get that on there nice and neat and centered and then grab your
other eyelet and pop it on the other side and often this style of bead is a little less
round and a little bit more flattened.
You can shape it as you like and then pop it off.
Make as many beads as you would like and then bake them all at the manufacturer's recommended
time at the temperature they recommend.
And before baking, just check inside those eyelets and poke out any excess clay that
might be in there.
So once your beads are baked, now you want to remove these eyelets from the beads and
you may be able to just work your fingernails in there and pull them out, but if they're
in there tightly, you can take a single edge razor blade and just carefully work it around.
Don't cut into your bead, just slide it between the bead and the eyelet and work it around
and it will at some point pop out.
If you get one out and the other one is stubborn, you can take like a paint brush handle or
a skewer and push from the other side and pop the other one out and then just go ahead
and pop your bead on a wooden skewer and this is a great handle and it's nice and long so
you're not going to burn your fingers when you're using the heat tool.
Next take your liquid clay and put a small amount on the bead.
You don't want to put too much on, but you do want to cover the entire thing and use
one of your small brushes to just brush a thin layer over the whole bead and now you're
going to use your heat tool to set that thin layer of clay.
Hold the heat tool about 6" away from the bead and just keep rotating it and do this
for about 30 seconds.
Pay attention, you don't want to burn or scorch your bead or your clay.
It's hard to tell on the white bead, but when the Polyclay is fully cured, it goes from
opaque to clear and glossy and now let it cool completely before you proceed to the
next step.
What I have is just a glass mug that I'm going to put this in so that it can sit and cool
without touching anything.
So once your bead is completely cooled, we're going to add our color and you do not need
much color.
I'm going to put just a single drop of one color here on my work surface.
That's it.
I know it looks like a tiny amount, but that's really probably more than I'll need.
I'm going to take my other color that I want to be my main color and I'm going to add one
drop to the bead.
Sometimes you don't even have to squeeze the bottle.
Sometimes just one drop will come out and I just want it to go all the way around the
bead and now I'm just going to take my brush and dab it in this little bit of the green
and I'm going to pat it around the areas of the bead where the blue isn't covering and
you can see as it dries it just kind of the more you tap it the more mottled it gets and
that's that.
That's it for that color and now one more time, I'm just going to take the heat tool,
you only have to hit it for a few seconds just to completely dry the alcohol ink and
then let that cool completely.
So you can see here I experimented with different combinations of the inks.
A little bit of experimenting will show you just how much ink you need really is a very
tiny amount.
You can make a difference with just a little bit of ink in the brush and dabbing around.
So once you finish all of your inking, a little bit of alcohol blending solution will wipe
it right up very easily.
It will also remove ink from fingers and clean your brush as well.
All right, so here's one that I'm happy with the colors of and now we're going to add the
final coat of liquid clay that will make these look like glass and you want to be sure that
you add just a very thin coat so that you don't have any drips, but you get a nice smooth
finish.
Do make sure that it covers the whole bead though without any missed spots and then hold
the heat gun again about 6" away.
Keep twirling the bead and you'll be able to watch it change from white and opaque to
clear and glossy, looking like glass.
Once it starts to change, you can move the heat gun in a little bit closer for the final
seconds to really bring out
the shine.
Now absolutely let these cool completely before touching them or you'll ruin your shiny surface.
So now once your bead is all cool, you can pull it off the bamboo skewer and the last
step is to use some strong glue, like Super Glue or E-6000 and glue your eyelets back
in place and there you have it.
Your own large hole beads that you can probably wear on any of your add-a-charm style bracelets.
So as I mentioned earlier I have a giveaway for you.
The Night's Treasure very kindly sent me this Ultimate Master Starter European Style Surgical
Steel Charm Bracelet and they also sent me a set of their Eternal Hearts Glass Charms,
which are lampwork glass with sterling silver and the bracelet itself comes with another
charm and these are designed to be compatible with all of your add-a-bead type bracelets.
The way it works is the end opposite the clasp twists off and then you can add your own beads
like the ones we just made in this tutorial.
The Night's Treasure not only sent me this bracelet for myself to review, but they sent
me another one to give away to my YouTube viewers.
By the way, it's an extender style with a removable chain and a cute little heart charm.
It's got a 3mm screw end and it will fit all beads and charms with a core size 3.5mm and
up, but like I said I have one of these to give away to my YouTube viewers.
So in order to enter the giveaway you need to be a subscriber to this YouTube channel.
You can click on the link that's on the video now or if you're on mobile, just go ahead
and go into the description box to go to my blog post link where you can enter to win
one of these bracelets.
In the meantime, I hope you had fun making your own large hole style faux lampwork beads.
Thanks so much for watching this video.
If you liked it, please be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel so you'll see more like
it and give it a like and share it with your friends.
Also check out the other videos up on the screen.
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Happy creating.