Erin's Beading Blog: Not your typical Keychain

For this weeks clay project I decided I wanted to make something that was school spirited, since little five is coming up. I wanted to make beads that said IU and other beads that were red and white. I decided that I was not going to use a cane technique that I usually use to make my beads, because it would be too hard to make a cane that said IU. I looked through the book I bought called “Baked Beads and Beyond! Making Magic Oven-Bake Clay” to see if there were any techniques I could use to achieve this design I was thinking of. I saw on page nine a technique that would be very useful for my project. The technique was making “snakes” which are just long thin logs of the clay, and then laying the snake on the bead and making a design with the snake.

The first step for me was to take my red clay and roll the clay into four different beads. After I did that I used my clay extruder and used it to extrude white thin snakes. Then I took the snakes and cut them into pieces so I could make the letters I and U. I used the snakes and made I on one bead and made U on the other bead. After the IU beads were finished I wanted some accent beads to go next to the IU, so I decided to make red and white striped beads. I used the snakes again and just wrapped the white snake around the red bead. The beads came out great but the striped beads were not perfect but still had that red and white striped look. I decided I wanted to make something with the beads, and thought I would probably not wear IU jewelry and decided the beads would look great as a key chain. I didn’t want to go out and buy materials to make a key chain, and I wanted to be resourceful. I looked around my apartment to see what I could use to make this keychain and found some hair ties that are used to tie your hair back. I took one of them and cut it in half and made a knot at the end. I then string on the beads and tied the string with the beads on to another hair tie. I did not look like a normal keychain but it was good enough for me, since I did not have to spend any money.

Using materials that I already owned relates to some of the topics we have gone over in class such a being resourceful by using materials you already have. Using materials that I already have is important to me because it saves me money, time, and gives me a new use out of something I was not using. For my next project I want to try and take the beads that I have made and make them into something I could use or wear.

Source: Bergen, L. R. (1995). Baked Beads and Beyond!. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.