Bead-Making Lab: 52 explorations for crafting beads from polymer clay, plastic, paper, stone, wood, fiber, and wire

Fill the year ahead with handcrafted beads that you can make yourself by following tutorials from Bead-Making Lab!

Imagine a year in beads. We’re talking 52 handmade varieties–a new bead each week–all handcrafted by you. Bead-Making Lab makes this bevy of bead making possible with instructions for bead designs that run the gamut from sophisticated styles to playful ones.

Bead-Making Lab is organized by material, and single-spread lab sessions (tutorials) for each bead design make the book simple to use. The sessions are brief, accomplishable, and rewarding. Choose from traditional materials like paper mache and polymer clay, or opt for new materials such as resins and recycled bottles and bags (which make surprisingly beautiful beads). Once you’ve selected your medium, follow the lab session instructions for the bead-making technique of your choice. Try a new technique each week! With how-tos including molding; carving; miniature painting; gluing; drilling beach glass, pebbles, and wood; and creating fiber-arts beads (quilling, quilting, and felting), you have a year of unique projects ahead of you. Bead-Making Lab also offers ideas for stringing and wearing your handmade beads, and there’s a gallery tour of contemporary bead artisans’ best work, too. Get busy beading, crafters!