Somewhere I already had about such potato beads ...
The topic is so funny and so much fun me that I, perhaps, will continue ...
It should not be treated very seriously - to call products from dried potatoes "Jewelry" is difficult, but the result is interesting. Here's how finished products look like
So, let's begin! We will need the following materials:
Potato,
Soil - I use latex soil for construction work.
Acrylic art paints, including metallic and glitter.
Tassel synthetics or bristles. I use an old brush that is not suitable for drawing.
Toothpicks.
Paper towels.
Clean the potato, cutting it along 4 parts, from each quarter, we cut a pump (semicircular edge). We will have 4 bar.
Cut these bars on cubes with a width of 1.5-2 cm. The resulting pieces are future beads. You can leave them in the form of a cube / brick, I like to cut the corner and turn a bead into a polyhedron - so it seems like me more like a piece of gem stone. That's how it looks like
Now we ride pieces of potatoes on the toothpicks. So the holes in beads are formed. We put on a paper towel - on drying.
Once a day I turn the future beads - so they dry faster. Cartophie pieces usually dry out and become solid after 1-3 weeks. This is how dried, ready-made pieces of potatoes look like painting.
IMPORTANT! No need to ride pieces of raw potatoes on wooden sticks for kebabs! Holes in beads will turn out too large and, if in future products for separating potato beads, we will use beads, small beads will fall into a large hole of potato beads. Although, if you use potato beads in Macrame products, the holes should be large - you can take a wooden wand.
No need to dry potato pieces in the oven! Beads will smell baked potatoes.
Now remove the dried pieces of potatoes from the toothpicks and the soil. Usually, to block the dark color of the dried potatoes, you have to primed twice. Each layer must dry.
I am soory and paint potato beads on a faience plate. While the soil (or paint) will dry by mixing beads from time to time (so that they do not shift to the plate). Coloring beads (for dried soil) acrylic paints.
Tip! You can, of course, color beads into any colors, and you can simulate certain minerals.
Here are the billets of the beads that I will paint under turquoos, lazuli and malachite.
Now I take in the hands of the gold metallic and so I miss the deceased beads
Without waiting for metallic drying, "Elza" by the beads on the paint droplets on a plate - I make it racks. It turns out that
I give dry and (if necessary) correct the color acrylic. Here you can take an acrylic paint, which slightly different from the first colorful layer - so pebbles will be more "alive." For example, for turquoise, it is possible to use the Ceruleum for the 1st layer, then the stains / bodies of gold metallic, then the Ceruleum with Bellyls.
I use titanium levies - they are better overlapped color.
You can paint the bead in any color, and then apply the glitter stains, and the glitter can be chosen and gold, and silver, and color. You cannot truly imitate minerals on potatoes, achieve the feeling that in your hands you have pebbles - that's all.
After drying, the paint beads can be covered with varnish. I use Matte varnish Vanish Matt, Old Holland. But the lacquer, even matte, gives the bead "plastic" appearance, in this way often I often do not cover the lacquer.
Now it is necessary to skim the hole in the bead, which was smeared with soil and painted with paints. We take a sewing needle and pierce the paint / soil layer, which closed the hole from the toothpick. Everything! Beads are ready!
Here are some of my "jewelry" from potatoes
It is interesting to combine potato beads with glass or plastic
