Polymer Clay Beads - Simple !

There are an infinite number of bead styles you can make using Polymer Clay. You’re limited only by your imagination and time. To start you out, I have included some of the easiest beads techniques for you to try.

By far the most popular technique for beads is to cover them with slices from a polymer clay cane. You can make some beautiful beads with a very simple cane design. That’s one of my favorite things about polymer clay, it’s so easy to work with and you can get such beautiful results with little effort, money and time.
This project will have you churning out beads and making jewelry in no time!

For this project you’ll need to have the following:

Follow these steps to make your bead. Choose the amount of clay you’re comfortable working with, keep in mind that we will add slices to it, so it will end up bigger than what you start with. Roll the bead around in your palm, you want the bead as round as possible. Most of the time rolling it in your palm will render a good round shape.

Once it’s round and you’re satisfied with it, you need to pierce it. Start with the bead between your thumb and forefinger and aim the needle into the center ?

When you press the needle into the bead, be gentle so you don’t distort the bead shape use a twisting motion to start the hole . Once the needle is halfway through the bead, pull it out and turn the bead over. Place the bead, with the hole, in the center of your fingertip

Applying Cane Slices to Your Bead

You’ll need a cane that has rested for about an hour after reducing, or you can put it in the refrigerator or freezer. Don’t worry you can’t ruin it by freezing it. If anything, the harder and colder, the better for slicing. Wipe off your slicing blade with a swab of rubbing alcohol so that you decrease the drag and have a nice clean blade when you slice. For slicing polymer clay canes you want to use a good sharp blade as well. Your slice should be about the thickness of a credit card, thinner if you want. The goal is to have it as thin as possible, without tearing it

Put the bead on the needle tool to begin applying the slices. Start at the top of the bead and apply the slices around the entire top

then begin filling the bead up with slices, making sure the edges butt together. For the places that are smaller than your slices, you can either cut a slice to fit, or apply the slice over the area, covering other slices

Be sure the entire bead is covered, you don’t want any gaps in this project. Once you have your bead covered, begin pressing it between your fingers, smooshing the canes into the bead but don’t distort the shape of the bead too much. You’ll definitely want to press hard enough all around the bead, you’ll see the slices become flat and disappear.

Now that all of the slices are flat, lets reshape the bead. Roll it around in your palm like you did in pic1 above. Watch that the cane slices don’t smear, go slowly. To avoid excessive sanding, smooth out your fingerprints and all bumps and creases in the bead before baking. Then pierce your bead as instructed above. ?