Wood beads can add a little pop of color or pizazz to your home decor. Every now and then we like to include unpainted beads in our monthly Project Home DIY kits.
While you can paint each individual bead with a brush and set them to dry on a skewer, who wants to do that?! At Project Home DIY, we strive to offer you quicker and easier ways to do DIY. We wanted to share with you a few different techniques for painting wood beads.
What you'll need:
Snack size ziploc bags
Wood beads
Acrylic paint, Metallic Unicorn Spit, or Wood Stain
Wood Bead Technique #1: Acrylic Paint
Grab your favorite color of acrylic paint and the ziploc bag. Place your wood beads inside, and squirt a dollop of paint in the bag.
Close the top of the bag and mash the beads around in the paint so the paint covers each bead evenly. If you have too much paint, your beads may end up "gloppy". No worries! Simply put them into another clean ziploc bag and rub some of the paint off.
Once the beads are covered the way you like, place them on a piece of paper or paper plate to dry. We like to use the packing paper included in our boxes to protect the work surface and it's the perfect thing to let beads dry on.
Wood Bead Technique #2: Metallic Unicorn Spit
Unicorn Spit is a water-based gel stain that comes in an array bright and fun colors. Even metallic shades! I did try a 'regular' color of Unicorn Spit, but it just didn't work as well as the metallic. If you want a solid color bead, I would suggest using an acrylic paint for the best coverage. However, the metallic shades of Unicorn Spit. Holy buckets! Sooo amazing!! Use the same technique with a ziploc bag and putting a bit of the gel stain into the bag and gently mash the bag to cover the beads. Then, set the beads out to dry.
Wood Bead Technique #3: Wood Stain
This last method is a little tricker but not too bad. First, make sure your wood stain is well mixed. LOL! I learned this the hard way and had to add more stain to my baggie than I would have liked because the first spoon full was more of the oil than the color. (face palm)
I highly suggest using some sort of spoon to drip your stain in to the bag for this wood bead technique. Trying to pour from the can could get a little messy and give you less control over how much you add.
As with the first two techniques above, mash the beads around in the stain within the bag and then set them out to dry.
Extra Tips & Tricks:
- After dumping your beads out from the baggie, keep it! You can re-use it to add another layer of color to the bead.
- If you don't like the coverage on the beads after one coat, place them back into the baggie and roll them around in the remaining paint left in the bag.
- After you set them out to dry, take a needle-nose tweezers and turn the beads so they all rest on one of the holes.
- You could also try staining your beads with 'forever stain'. Check out this post to learn more about this type of stain.
At the end, you will have lovely colored wood beads to create a garland, vase filler, or whatever else you come up with!
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