Rose Petal Beads - Magy Freyser

At Elvegast's A&S night on Monday we made rose petal beads. That's beads made from crushed rose petals for anyone not sure. There are lots of "recipes" online, but here's what I did to make them. (They can be used to make period rosaries, by the way.)

Take some quantity of rose petals. If they are dried, that's fine. If they are fresh, it's best to take your fingernail and nip the hard tip off where they were connected to the rose. This will take time if you have a lot of petals, but will work better for the beads. Make sure there is nothing else in the petals, like bits of leaves. Grind the petals up in a food processor or blender. The food processor worked great for me for the fresh ones and the blender worked well for the dried ones, but it should be interchangable. The dried petals can be ground until they are practically powder and the fresh ones should be ground to tiny little bits.

Put the petal bits in a big pot, I use one of those big black speckled enamel pots. It can be washed out, shouldn't stain anything, and shouldn't stick to the bottom. To this, I added a bit of potpourri oil - Victorian Rose scent. Keep in mind your house will be filled with Eau de Old Lady, as my lord refers to it. You might want to turn on the fan over the stove. I also added some Gum Arabic. All the directions I have seen say to use the powdered stuff. I have YET to find it powdered, but Michaels (and probably AC Moore) sell it in the liquid form. I don't have a set amount I add to it and the point is that you are trying to make the petals stick together. I would say to add a teaspoon up to a tablespoon or two, considering how big the pile of mush is that you are creating. Stir that up and then add water to make it kinda muddy. Don't make it too runny, or this will take forever. You are going to cook it to a clay consistency, so the more clay-like it starts, the easier this will be.

Put the pot on the stove on low and stir it. Let it cook there, uncovered for several hours, as long as you can, stirring every now and then. If you need to leave or go to bed, turn it off, stir it and leave it. When you are able, turn it back on again and reheat, stirring occasionally. You will want to prepare this mush at least the day before you are going to use it. If you can keep cooking it for a couple of days, that's even better.

When it's ready (use your best judgment, we are looking for clay here), you can form it into little balls and stick a toothpick through them. I also made some little flat round and heart-shaped tokens. Use your imagination. It's best to let them dry on wax paper. Move the pieces around on the paper and slide the beads on the toothpicks every now and then to make sure they don't stick. They should be left out to dry for a few days, or if you have a food dehydrator, put them in there on the second day for about 5-6 hours or so.

When they are dry, you can use them just like they are, or glaze them. Glazing makes them MUCH sturdier and they won't flake or chip. I used speedball medium (again, Micheals or AC Moore) which is used for painting over oil paintings. It dries clear, slightly shiny, won't yellow or flake off. Yes, you can still smell the petals through the glazing. I didn't glaze the inside of the holes I made and that helped.

Your beads, tokens, whatever, will be deep dark red, almost black. It does NOT matter what color the roses were to begin with, they all turn out that way. Feel free to email me at clairjamie@yahoo.com if you have questions. I have done this a couple of times now, so I am no expert by any means, but will be glad to help.

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