Wood grain Natasha bead

08 Thursday Sep 2011

Tags

bead, natasha bead, polymer clay, tutorial, wood grain

Example woodgrain bead.

Following my previous post about making a round Natasha bead, I have a few variations that make more interesting patterns than the chopped scrap. Remember that since the Natasha method turns the bead inside out, you want an interesting middle.

Stack a few layers of clay together. The top and bottom colours will be most prominent in your finished bead

Run the clay layers through the pasta machine and slice in half.

Stack the two halves of clay together and run through the pasta machine again.

Repeat the stacking and runing through PM until your lines are as fine as you would like. Here I have 12 layers (4x each colour). I like to square up using grid paper and cut into equal length strips so that my beads will be the same size. These strips are 5mm x 70mm.

Cut one of the strips diagonally in half (this does not need to be perfect it just allows different sized areas of stripes in the final bead.)Twist and coil one piece into a rough ball.

Twist and wrap the second piece around the first.

Squish the strips into a cube and follow the steps for making into a Natasha bead. (It's a good idea to let the cube rest a little before cutting to make Natasha bead.)