A Tyvek Bead Tutorial

Here's a pictorial on making Tyvek beads. Just remember to twist the bead around the skewer, moving it up and down a bit, each time you use heat of whatever sort you've chosen, or else you'll never get the bead free.

<--This is a plain piece of Tyvek. Just laying there, begging to play.







<--These are pieces of the Tyvek, painted all nice and shiny. Metallic acrylics, and Lumiere.



<--This is the Tyvek all cut up, ready to roll.








<-- Rolling the Tyvek. Remember 5th grade art class, when we made those hideous rolled beads out of magazine pictures? This is rolled the same way, only around a bamboo skewer instead of a nail, and it's a lot prettier. By the way, some skewers are better than others for beads-- Good Cook skewers tend to splinter along the length, from moving the bead around. Be careful, or you may find out why bamboo splinters shoved under fingernails can be so effective as a torture device!

<-- Finished rolling. I used a glue stick to attach the little end to the rest of the bead. Tacky Glue works well, too.



Melting the Tyvek bead with the heatgun. Keep your fingers away, there's some real heat going on.







This is another really neat way to roll the Tyvek onto the skewer-- twist it around the skewer, and both sides of the Tyvek keep showing up, alternately.


Finished twisting.



A melted twisted Tyvek bead. These are so cool-- really unusual.





Using a soldering iron on a bead, instead of a heat gun. A bead has to be pretty firmly twisted onto the skewer, or else it just slides up and down and you can't get anything done.



See the smoke? This is the kind you DON'T want to inhale!






Finished soldering. See all the smooth surface? Now take your heat gun if you want, and melt it all up. Or not. Or keep on soldering.





A pot o' beads.