Thursday, December 3, 2015

Memorial Beads - Part 1

A friend inspired me to attempt making memorial beads using dried flowers from her late mother's funeral.  What a cool concept!

I used Fimo polymer clay in a translucent colour, crushed dried lavender & dried chamomile.  The toughest part is kneeding the clay by hand otherwise the clay is too brittle to hold its shape.  Next, I roll it out and sprinkle dried flowers and knead again until plyable.  Once again, roll out the clay to a rather thin consistency and use a tiny cookie cutter - any shape is fine.  This ensures each bead will be consistent in size.  Roll into a ball.  I'm using some of my 18 gauge silver wire and piercing a hole through the centre of the bead (easier said than done!).  Leave beads on wire and lay over an oven-ready pan to bake for 1 hr in a 265F oven.

Results to be posted at a later date!