These striped cylinder beads look really good in necklaces and are easy to make. The basic process requires a stack of different coloured sheets and this post shows how to make them.

Materials:

• Clay in your colour of preference
• White clay

Equipment:

• Pasta machine or roller
• Oven
• Toothpicks
• Piece of glass or ceramic tile
• Stiff sharp blade

I wanted to make gradated beads in green, but you can use any colours that you like.

Step 1: Mixing clay

When using one colour of clay, make sure you have a fair amount of the darkest colour you want to use, as this is the base for mixing the colour. For the other colours use:

• 3 parts green to 1 part white for the next darkest
• 2 parts green to 2 parts white for the middle colour
• 1 part green to 4 parts white for the bright colour
• 1 part green to 6 parts white for the lightest colour
• Pure white for the last colour

When you mix the colours only use white (or black, but not both) to get different tones, that way you can use the scrap clay in another project without the colours becoming muddy. Image 1a shows the different shades of clay.

Step 2: Roll out

Roll out the different shades of clay and cut them to equal sizes. Stack the sheets with the darkest at the bottom and white at the top. Make sure that each layer adheres properly to the one below without air bubbles. I usually put the sheet down from the right, carefully smoothing it to the left of the stack to get rid of air bubbles. See [image 2] to see how it should look.

Step 3: Cut squares

The easiest way of doing this is, by laying your stack on your piece of glass, and positioning it over a grid. I cut 1cm squares with a stiff blade.

By the way - whenever you do accurate work - use a stiff blade instead of a flexible one it works better.

It is also better to use stiffer clay, I generally use Fimo Classic, and Premo is stiff enough. (I have not been able to purchase any Cato clay yet.)

Lift each square using the edge of your blade and stick a toothpick into the centre of it. See image 3.

Step 4: Smooth and roll

Gently press the corners of the square so that you get a more rounded shape. Have a look to ensure that you don’t warp the lines between the layers. You could also cut off the sharp corner instead of smoothing it.

Roll the toothpick on your glass to get a round shape and place it upright to be ready for baking. Don’t apply too much pressure otherwise the hole with the toothpick will deform. Sometimes you have to pull it out of the toothpick to smooth the top and bottom of the bead. Be careful not to leave fingerprints when you do that. Roll the bead a little bit more to remove any fingerprints on the side.  See image step 4 for the result.

Tip: I use a piece of wood with drilled holes to hold my toothpicks with their beads. The wood has a low flashpoint so it does not burn when in the oven, and it is handy to put the beads back onto when you varnish them.