Making Clay Beads Part I

Do you know the difference between hand formed clay beads vs molded clay beads? The difference is Huge! After years of trial and error, we have perfected our process.

We begin with huge heavy blocks of clay and slice, dice, roll and smoosh the clay into all kinds of shapes and sizes. We love to use organic materials, ie, leaves, grasses and twigs to make impressions.



The next step is the hole making process, by taking a few extra steps and a lot more time we make tiny precise centered holes ~ A distinct difference between our beads and mass produced beads.



In the leather hard stage we dry sand ~ this perfects the ends of the beads resulting in nice flat ends so designs and beads lay together smoothly. Moving on to the wet sanding ~ this adds a nice smooth rounded edge which gives glaze a unique faded look.

Then all the beads go into my Paragon kiln and are fired to temperatures close to 2000 degrees for up to 14 hours.

That is the beginning of our bead process! If I was molding the beads…. I would simple pour liquid clay into a prefabricated mold, wait about a ½ hour, and take them out. They would be thin, fragile and have a big unsightly hole. Definitely not unique!!

Stay Tuned ~ We'll Share a few of our glazing secrets in Part II....