Hand Painted Wooden Bead Necklace

I have been SO excited to share my latest DIY with you – a hand painted wooden bead necklace! The idea of painting wooden beads has been floating around in my head for some time and I finally had some time to pick paint colors and go to work. I love how this necklace came out and can’t wait to make more. Watch out friends and family – you may be receiving a hand painted wooden bead necklace for Christmas this year!

For this project you will need: wooden beads, paint (I love the Martha Stewart Crafts multi-surface craft paint), paint brushes, a string and clasp for the necklace, and needle-nose pliers for the clasp.

 

First – paint your beads! I went with a color scheme of white, black, green, and gold. It’s best to paint your base coat first then let dry completely.

 

The toughest part of this DIY is painting the wooden beads because you’ll want to create some sort of apparatus to hold the bead as you paint. Two suggestions that I used: 1. stick the bead on the end of another paint brush or 2. use 2 skewers (or similar object) putting each inside the bead on either side (see above). Oh, and to let them dry I stuck the skewers into a jar of popcorn kernels, it worked perfect.

 

Once your base coat is dry, you can add details like stripes, polka dots, chevron pattern if you’re fancy! I ended up doing stripes free-hand (and they turned out a little shaky) but I used the end of a lollipop stick to make uniform polka dots. Let your hand painted wooden beads dry overnight and then you’re ready to make them a necklace, this is the easy part.

 

First, put your clasp on one end of your string. I like to use a clasp where instead of tying the string to each half of the clasp, your crimp/pinch the metal closed to secure the string.

 

Then thread your beads and put on the second half of the clasp.

 

I love this necklace! I’ve worn my hand painted wooden bead necklace already with a simple black tee….

 

…and a buttoned chambray shirt. An adorable statement necklace, don’t you think?