Wooden Beads

Easy method for making lovely wooden beads!

1. Gather some green twigs after a day of rain. I usually gather from the apple trees.

2. Peel off the bark right away as this is when it is easiest to do. If you find that the bark is sticking in places, take a knife or even something like a cermaic tool, as long as the one edge is fairly sharp, and scrape it along the wood.

3. Using hand clippers, clip the twigs down into the size beads that you want.

4. Drill out the pulp. I’m almost ashamed to admit this but I would use one of those little “drills�?that come along with the ink jet refill kits.

5. Keep them in an open container until they’ve dried out. This only takes a week, at most. Depending on how many you have in the container and how big the beads are.

6. Once they are dry, take an emery board and sand down the edges and give the sides a quick sanding.

7. Stain the beads. For this, I’ve used regular old wood stain to watered down acrylic paints.

8. Let dry for at least a day and then they will be ready to use.

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