Cord and Hair Bead Tutorial with Core Painting Technique – making baby keepsake jewellery using a silicone mould. This technique is ideal for making beads for your clients’ Pandora style bracelets. Finishing the bead with a painted core then adding a solid sterling silver engraved core finding. This technique is ideal for our bead cores here which are solid sterling silver.
The bead cores are really easy to fit, you don’t need glue, and they cover a wide sanding area making your bead look more professional than using glue-in bead inserts (also known as grommets or charm bead findings). The ashes/hair kit option for the bead core comes with a bead mould, so you can make a couple of beads then choose your favourite to add a bead core to. You can read more about adding coloured cores to beads here.
Cord and Hair Bead Tutorial with Core Painting Technique Video
TikTok – coming soon!
Here’s the transcript. After your first order you’ll receive a reasonable 15%* off future purchases. We have several courses here including some free to help you learn more about making bereavement and cremation jewelry such as a cremation ring.
You’ll need the following supplies
one of our DIY ashes bead kits
the ashes/hair version of the kits contain:
- a bead setting – this is one of Blank Cores with text engraving
- medium bead mould
- vinyl gloves
- resin sparkle mix (you can use eyeshadow for a custom colour!)
- a dust mask
- label backing paper
- some sandpaper
- 3 cocktail sticks
- 10g UV resin – you can also use epoxy resin instead of UV resin and a UV lamp for these pieces but you will need to wait for the resin to cure which can take days
You’ll also need your client’s umbilical cord and/or lock of hair for this piece. We ask them to only send half of their baby’s cord stump or a small pinch of hair! That way, if it’s lost in the post they can send a little more.
Tools and Equipment
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- LED UV torch** or a good UV lamp for professionals
- 200g bottle of Padico Star Drop
- side cutting pliers
- pestle and mortar
- carbide burr bit
- a wooden doming block or a folded cloth
- a doming punch set or you can use the ball bearing included with the bead core and
- small hammer, both methods are shown in depth in this video:
Cord and Hair Bead Tutorial with Core Painting Technique
Hi, I’m Nikki Lovegrove and today I’m showing you how to make an umbilical cord bead with baby’s lock of hair or first curl. I’m using one of the keepsake DIY kits available on my website KeepsakerSupplies.com This video is dedicated to my client Heidi’s little boy Georgie and the bead core was engraved “My Little Prince” with his date of birth and two heart emojis. This will fit on a European style bracelet such as Pandora.
Making a bead with hair and umbilical cord
First, prepare the umbilical cord by cutting it into smaller pieces with side cutting pliers then grind the pieces as well as you can in a pestle and mortar. Try to keep back some of the cord in case the bead doesn’t come out how you want, so you can make another one. Any unused cord is returned to the client.To prepare the lock of hair, put a line of UV resin on label backing paper then place some of the hair on top. Use a cocktail stick to make sure it’s covered in resin and put some more on top. I’m using Padico Star Drop UV resin which is the world’s best UV resin and I stock bottles of it on my website KeepsakerSupplies.com from 10g to 500g.
Carefully transfer the hair to an empty medium bead mould, then form it in a line around the centre. Be cautious not to poke the mould or it will leave dents in your finished pieces. You really should use gloves but sometimes it’s easier without. Fill the bead mould with clear resin and remove any large air bubbles and make sure the hair is placed nicely. The moulds are water clear so you can see the bubbles but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to get them out when they’re trapped in the hair. Spend time looking for them, they’ll appear as little silvery lines.
Heidi didn’t want any sparkles or colour in with the cord which is quite normal with umbilical cord and placenta. Just add the powder on top of the mould then use the cocktail stick to poke it in and make sure it’s even all the way round. Make sure there’s not too much excess resin round the top of the top. Cure the bead in your UV lamp, preferably on a low heat setting. Allow it to cool, flip it over and cure again, then repeat so it’s been cured a total of three times. Let the bead cool down completely before you remove it from the mould so it doesn’t go dull when you touch it.
Send your client a photo of the bead to check they’re happy with the placement of the hair and cord. I let Heidi know that because there wasn’t a large piece of umbilical cord, the bead was see-through. I knew that the bead core would be visible in the finished piece so I recommended that I paint the inside. I knew she didn’t want a bright colour so I suggested shimmery white and she agreed. I removed the excess resin from the pouring spout with a carbide burr bit in a pendant motor but you can use a rotary tool like a Dremel. I have more tutorials showing this in detail.
Then I very carefully removed a little more resin from inside with the same tool, which is called “reaming” the bead. After washing the bead and making sure it’s completely dry, you can take a little pre-mixed unicorn white resin sparkle mix to paint the inside. You can use a contrasting colour to give really beautiful bright results, let me know in the comments if you’d like to see me do this with another bead! Use a cocktail stick to apply the sparkle and make sure it’s a nice even layer but nice and thin or it won’t cure well. Cure it a few times under the UV lamp.
The main bead core goes through the front of the bead (which was at the bottom of the mould). Put on the washer on the back then to add the bead core, use a wooden doming block if you have one. It will stabilise the bead nicely and it’s best to use a doming punch set to flare the core. Start with a small size like 6mm and hit it very gently with a hammer, then move up sizes until the core no longer spins. If the back is sticking up a little like this, you can put it on a cloth and tap it down with a hammer but please be very, very cautious so you don’t end up marking the front of the bead core, especially if it’s engraved!
Your bead is finished, give it a little polish with a silver polishing cloth and photograph before sending to your client. Thank you so much for watching my video, please subscribe and turn on notifications so you know when I post something new. Now relax and do some crafting.
Please note, this Cord and Hair Bead Tutorial blog contains affiliate links, meaning I receive a small income based on your purchases from Amazon and Etsy etc. This affiliate income is really helpful to me to support my family and if you’d like to know how I set it all up please see my affiliate page here.
Nikki
*terms apply – some products aren’t included such as settings and findings, sorry.
