If love is shelter...

Playing around with my new cotton pearls. These ones remind me a bit of old mercury glass - they are of warm, silvery color and one of them seems to have sprinkles of black patina on its surface.

"If love is shelter, I am going to walk in the rain."

DIY Cotton Pearls

Do you know these adorable old japanese cotton pearls? Aren't they the most beautiful beads you have ever seen? Yes, they are. But they are also quite rare and expensive. Besides that, they often come in bigger sizes and I always wanted to have them a bit smaller and in different colors.

Inspired by Marina's (fancifuldevices) cooooooool UTEE experiment, I thought I'd try to make my own cotton pearls.

Okay, I didn't have any eye shadow powder like Fanci (really have to try it one day!!!), so I took the boring normal stuff instead: Ranger's "Perfect Pearls".

I used the colors "Pewter", "Biscotti" and "Perfect Pearl" and mixed a small amount of each with either black or clear UTEE. White UTEE would have worked great with Perfect Pearl and Biscotti I'm sure, but I didn't have any white handy.

I took some paper cotton balls in different sizes (10 and 12mm are pictured), rolled them around on a Perfect Medium stamp pad, dipped them into the UTEE mix of my choice and picked them on an awl. One at a time, of course. Then heated with my heat gun, dipped again, heated... and so on till I was pleased with my "pearl".

Okay, my cotton pearls are by no means comparable with the real Japanese Cotton Pearls. But these are also beautiful, don't you think? And like the originals they weigh next to nothing, so they are perfect for earrings.

The white one looks quite matte in the picture, but it is actually very shiny.

I absolutely LOVE (LOVE, LOVE) the texture of the two larger beads. To receive this texture, just stop heating the last layer of UTEE before it has melted completely.

If you try this, please let me know! I am looking forward to see what you'll come up with!!!