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Top tips for painting wooden beads


Steph here, I thought I’d share my inspiration for my latest creation as well as my top tips for painting wooden beads. When our new wooden beads mix arrived I had to buy some myself so I could play around. I recently finished a top (I also love to sew). The top is made from a black jersey, with flecks of solid bright colours. It’s quite subtle (with a slight nod to the 80’s – which is probably why I fell for it).

I used the fabric as inspiration for painting some of the beads from my mix. Then decided to invert the colour scheme. I painted the beads in solid base colours, trying to match them to the flecks on the black fabric. I went for red, yellow, blue and Green). Then I painted tiny flecks of black all over them. It was really fun to make and I think really stands out worn with my top.

My top tips for painting wooden beads;

  • Sand any rough bits around the holes of the bead before painting. So that you don’t remove the paint if you spot a rough be later sanding later. I used a bead reamer to just neaten up the few bead holes that needed it (most were ok).
  • The tricky part of painting any small item is how to hold them while painting. Cocktail sticks work really well. The beads still moved around for me, but not much. If the holes in your beads are larger you can always wrap paper or card around the cocktail stick first. This will stop the bead spinning around while you paint.
  • Using appropriate brushes will help particularly if you want to add fine details. I used a standard flat acrylic brush for the base colours. For the finer details I used a medium round brush, with a fine point and painted using the tip of the bristles. You can also use paint pens or marker pens for adding detail. 
  • If you want a really bold paint effect you can build up your layers of paint. I painted one coat on most of my beads (2 on the yellow), you can still see the wood grain though the colour, which I quite like. Have a practice on a spare beads to see what effects you prefer. 
  • Drying your beads. Ideally you want to prepare an area to dry your beads before painting them. Here I simply used a piece of scrap card and folded it into a concertina (see image below). This provided an ideal place to rest my cocktail sticks so the beads weren’t touching one another or any surfaces.
  • To varnish or not to varnish – this really is down to how you’ve coloured your beads and personal preference. If you’ve used any colouring that it’s not colour fast, varnishing is a good idea to prevent colour transfer. I used acrylic paint so I don’t necessarily need to varnish, but I might still coat them to give them a more professionally finished look.
Top Tips for painting wooden beads - The Bead Shop Nottingham


There’s lots of different ways you can dye, paint or colour your beads – it’s a fun way to personalise your projects. It’d be a great activity for a craftanoon with friends or entertaining the kids during the school holidays.

You can read our previous blog posts about painted wooden beads here. For a whole lot more inspiration you can head to Pinterest. I found a great project by Aunt Peaches who’d dyed their beads with watercolours, creating a subtle colour palette of beads. So if you’re stuck for your starting point, there’s endless inspiration.

We’d love to see what you make with your wooden bead mix. Feel free to share your creations with us on social media and remember to tag us or use #TheBeadShopNottingham

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