Beaded Hair Stick

A Japanese-style bead hair stick

Posted by emusing-emma

About

Here's how to make a tama - a hair stick with a large bead on it, like the ones worn by apprentice geishas. Traditionally these come in two colours, red and green, with red being worn from October to May, and green from June to September.

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You Will Need (3 things)

  • Wooden Skewer
  • Black Polymer Clay
  • 2 cm Wooden Bead

Steps (8 steps, 35 minutes)

  1. 1

    Cut a wooden kebab skewer to between 15 and 20cm, depending on how long you would like it, measuring from the pointy end so you are keeping the point (I use jewellery snips to do this, but strong kitchen scissors would work).

  2. 2

    Sand the cut end

  3. 3

    Make an end out of black polymer clay in a flattened angled triangle shape as shown.

  4. 4

    Poke the sharp end of the kebab skewer in this to make a hole, but don’t go all the way through. Bake the clay.

  5. 5

    Paint the skewer black

  6. 6

    Paint a 2cm (approx) bead either bright red or apple green

  7. 7

    Glue the bead in position about an inch from the end of the skewer, and glue the polymer clay end in place (if you want to, you can paint a design in gold paint on the bead at this point)

  8. 8

    Varnish the completed hair stick, making sure that the bead has a high glossy shine.