DIY Pottery Barn Inspired Beachy Beads

Recently, I saw some gorgeous beads online at Pottery Barn. (You can see a photo of them in my blog post.) They were made from sea glass and I just fell in love with the color and beachy vibe. But alas, they were $99 just for a string of beads, and that was not in my budget.

So I decided to do a trial and error DIY and see if I could create my own.

Materials I used:

Wood Beads ( I already had some leftovers from a project. I think they were 16 mm.)

Paint ( I combined two colors-Blue and white)

Looking Glass Paint

Clear Glossy Enamel Paint

White String

Dowels

Styrofoam

The first step was to try and create a close match to the color the inspiration beads were. There are spray paints on the market in several shades of 'sea glass' but I couldn't find one close to what I wanted so I made my own. I used some chalk paint I already had on hand in white and coastal blue.

When I had the color I wanted I was ready to paint. To do this I first placed each bead ( I had 19) onto a dowel rod. Then I dipped each bead into the paint, swirled it around to allow any excess to drip off, and then stuck the dowels into a scrap piece of styrofoam.

After the paint dried I decided I wanted more of a 'weathered' look for the beads. So I experimented a bit and sprayed each of the beads with one coat of the Looking Glass Paint. Then I dipped the beads back into the blue paint. Finally, I laid them out on a piece of paper towel and gently blotted them with another piece to get the aged look I wanted.

Once the beads dried I gave them two coats (drying time in between coats) of Clear Coat -Glossy to give them that shiny-glass-like look.

Then I simply strung them onto a piece of white string, tying a knot at each end to secure them. I think I'd like to get a few more beads to make a longer strand, but overall, I like how my beachy beads turned out. And the best part is they didn't cost me anything to make!

They will definitely go with some of the other beachy decor I found in my stash the other day. You can find the full tutorial in the link below, along with more summery DIY's!