Upcycle Old Ugly Polymer Clay Beads into Heishi Beads

00:00:03 –> 00:00:09 Hi guys, its Cindy Lietz, your Polymer Clay Tutor, and today’s studio tip is how to make

00:00:09 –> 00:00:13 Heishi Beads out of old beads.

00:00:13 –> 00:00:18 Sometimes you have beads that just don’t turn out that great, or when you first are making

00:00:18 –> 00:00:23 beads; they’re not that great, so sometimes you don’t have quite the heart to throw them

00:00:23 –> 00:00:27 away, and I basically tell you never to throw them away, and this is a good reason.

00:00:27 –> 00:00:33 Now you can re-use your old weird looking beads and make them into Heishi Beads.

00:00:33 –> 00:00:40 And I’ll just show you a few examples, I have this bead; definitely a weird bead, I worked

00:00:40 –> 00:00:45 on one time, and if you…I’ll show you in a sec how to do it, but if you warm them up,

00:00:45 –> 00:00:54 you can slice them and turn them into Heishi beads, and here is the same exact bead that

00:00:54 –> 00:00:59 has been cut into Heishi beads and it sure changes the look of them.

00:00:59 –> 00:01:04 Now they can be used for spacers, you can even…when they’re cut up, they look a

00:01:04 –> 00:01:10 lot like sequins, all kinds of different things, so you get it just a whole new life out of

00:01:10 –> 00:01:11 them.

00:01:11 –> 00:01:18 I’ve got a bunch of different examples here of beads that were cut up and how they look,

00:01:18 –> 00:01:22 they have a sort of a tropical look if they’re in more tropical colors.

00:01:22 –> 00:01:29 This is some little spiral tube beads that turned out okay but not great, and once they’re

00:01:29 –> 00:01:35 cut up, they almost look like they’re bone or shell or something like that.

00:01:35 –> 00:01:43 Here is a… it was a Natasha bead that I got a big dent in the side of and didn’t notice

00:01:43 –> 00:01:48 that I had the dent in it until after it was baked, and I cut it up and look at how neat

00:01:48 –> 00:01:52 it looks, it has just a different look to the bead.

00:01:52 –> 00:01:58 Now I’ve got some beads sitting in the oven here at about…oh I guess they’re at about

00:01:58 –> 00:02:05 just over a 150 degrees, you want to warm them up; I’ve got them in a little bowl here,

00:02:05 –> 00:02:10 and you don’t wanna heat them up so hot that they become rubbery, you just want them to

00:02:10 –> 00:02:13 be warmed up so they’re soft.

00:02:13 –> 00:02:18 And here’s one here, it was a marbled bead, and you can see it’s rubbery a little bit,

00:02:18 –> 00:02:24 but it’s just…it’s warm, it’s not too rubbery, you’ll know what I mean if you’ve

00:02:24 –> 00:02:26 over heated them, they’re tricky to cut.

00:02:26 –> 00:02:33 Then I’ve just got a little thing I’m cutting on here and a razor blade, and you’ll see

00:02:33 –> 00:02:41 that they’ll just cut right through just like butter, and you can cut them super thin and

00:02:41 –> 00:02:48 then you have these sort of wafer thin almost Sequin kind of…type bead, or you can cut

00:02:48 –> 00:02:54 them bigger, so that they’re more like Heishi Beads.

00:02:54 –> 00:03:00 And you don’t have to worry if they’re all perfect, because if they’re not perfect; if

00:03:00 –> 00:03:07 say for example they are cut a little bit wonky and a little triangular, when they go

00:03:07 –> 00:03:13 to stack together, they’ll look a little bit more random and they won’t fit together perfectly,

00:03:13 –> 00:03:19 and it’ll have a more natural look, so I just wanted to show you that.

00:03:19 –> 00:03:25 I heat them up for about 10 minutes or so at that low temperature, like I said, if you

00:03:25 –> 00:03:32 did go too high, like 265F, 275F it’ll get very rubbery, and you’ll go to cut it and

00:03:32 –> 00:03:39 it’ll be…it’ll be really tricky to do, and if you try to cut them when they’re not

00:03:39 –> 00:03:42 warm, they’re difficult as well, they’ll snap kinda funny.

00:03:42 –> 00:03:47 So just warm up your old beads, slice them up and see if you can give ‘em a new life.

00:03:47 –> 00:03:52 So I hope you liked that, and if you did, could you please give us a like that, or give

00:03:52 –> 00:03:55 us a thumbs up, that would be great.

00:03:55 –> 00:04:00 And my question for you today is, do you have any old ugly beads that you could use in this

00:04:00 –> 00:04:01 type of fashion?

00:04:01 –> 00:04:08 I’d love to hear about it, so leave me a comment in the questio…leave me a comment in the

00:04:08 –> 00:04:12 section below, and we’ll see what everyone’s done out there.

00:04:12 –> 00:04:14 So we’ll see you next time, and bye for now.

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