DIY Wooden Bead Gems
Post by Rebecca of Not So SAHM
Check out how to make our dip-dyed gems and then see if you can figure out their story!
- Faceted wooden beads (we got ours here)
- Several colors of Rit Dye (we like the powder and used several fall jewel tones)
- Embroidery floss or baker’s twine
- Large-eyed needle
- Glass jars for dying the beads
- Tape
- Gold liquid watercolor (we like this one) and paint brush
How to make the gems:
Mix a bit of each color dye with water in your glass jar — we didn’t follow a precise amount, but you want to have just enough colored water to cover the beads. Too much water mean the beads will all float and prevent even dying. We did about 1 tbs of color powder with 1/3 cup water per jar.
Help your kiddos thread the needle and then let them string a bunch of beads onto the embroidery floss. Tie the threaded strand and loop it over the top of the glass, making sure the all of the beads are submerged into the colored water. Tape the strand to the outside top of the glass to hold it in place.
Let the beads sit in the colored water for about 45 – 1 hr, mixing them up every once in awhile. Then remove from jar, rinse well under cool water, and lay out to dry overnight. Once dry, brush some of the beads with the gold liquid watercolor – it adds a nice dimension to the gems!
Once the beads have all dried completely, thread them back onto embroidery floss or sparkly baker’s twine to make a gorgeous strand of gems… And then use them in whatever creative play you want! These two had a serious story of robbery happening, but the pixie prevailed!
Thanks to The Land of Nod for gifting us the fabulous Bandit costume and the Petite Pixie costume!