How to Make a Bead with Crystal Clay and Bead Caps

Name: How to Make a Bead with Crystal Clay and Bead Caps
Brand: Beadaholique
SKU: VID-0403
Availability: InStock

SKU VID-0403

Designer: Julie Bean

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In this video tutorial, see how to easily make a bead using Crystal Clay (2-part epoxy clay), 2 bead caps, and some Sparkle Dust mica powder. This super easy technique opens the doors to a world of possibilities making your own beads.

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Audio Transcript

Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
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!