Making Rose Petal Beads
Our rosebushes were prolific this year, so I was looking for something to do with the beautiful petals. The first instructions for rose petal beads that I found were brief but sounded interesting, so I decided to try some.
As I continued my online research I found dozens of different recipies for rose petal beads. I found it surprising that none of the sites had pictures of the process, and I was hard-pressed to find even a handful of photographs of the finished product. Since I've found this to be so much fun, here's the method that I use... it's simple, and it works.
The history of beads made out of rose petals is a long one. Various sources trace them back to ancient Greece, medieval times, and Victorian England. I am currently trying to verify some of these stories; however, it seems to be widely accepted that rosaries got their name from the rose beads that they were originally made out of.
First, get some flower petals. Ideally you should have a rosebush in your or a friend's backyard (in my experience, almost any gardener is willing to share blooms that are past their prime in exchange for some of the finished beads). You can also buy roses at the store --- my local grocery store even offers loose rose petals for sale beside the blooms!
I've tried this with magnolia petals and a few other flowers; almost all flower petals work (leaves do not: chlorophyll is too slimy. If you want green beads that match the rose beads for your projects, try following these instructions with green paper instead of petals). You'll need a lot of petals to work with, but not a huge number --- in my experience, one double handful of petals (or three to four small blooms) produces about two dozen beads. The more vivid and fragrant the blooms, the better.
Now that you have the petals, you need to reduce them to a clay-like paste. Different sources have different ideas about the best way to do this... in Victorian times they would simmer the petals for days or even weeks at a time.
Victorians didn't have blenders!
I usually toss the petals and some water into the blender to get my paste. I haven't tried the other methods yet (I don't trust our elderly stove, to be honest) but this gets me paste to work with in two minutes instead of two weeks. Also, I have never found it necessary to add anything other than petals and water, though many instructions call for additives.
Pull the goop out of the blender and drain the water off. This is actually less messy than it looks, and smells wonderful. Pick up a pinch of this stuff and squeeze water out of it until you can gently roll it into a bead. I usually make beads about a half inch in diameter at this point, because they shrink a lot when drying.
Stick a pin through the bead and put it somewhere that it can dry. I've had the greatest success pinning the drying beads to a corkboard --- if they're put in a box, or anywhere without enough air flow, then they might get moldy!
In two or three days the beads will be dry enough to work with. Be sure to move them around a little while they're drying, or they might get stuck to the pin.
Here's a scan of a finished necklace, made with dried beads.
The smaller beads are standard seed beads.