I bought some beautiful handmade beads at an artist’s shop in Albuquerque a few weeks ago.  Aren’t they beautiful in the picture above?  The top two were made from handmade paper and the green one from fabric.  I thought I’d give it a try myself with the yarn I used in my recent scarf-making venture.  See https://crapsmanship.com/2015/06/23/easy-to-do-cheap-to-make-pain-to-maintain-pretty-to-wear-scarf/.

After doing a little research, I wrapped wire around a straw.  I expected that the wire would form a base for the bead and would help the bead slide off the straw.

I did this three times on the same straw, and then I wrapped yarn around each wired spiral, using ModPodge to keep the yarn adhered.

I like how they looked, but CRAP ALERT:  I couldn’t remove the beads from the straw.  They wouldn’t slide at all, undoubtedly because the ModPodge glued the yarn to the straw as well as to the wire.  Taking some advice from another blogger, I tried to cut away the bead with scissors, but I couldn’t trim it well enough to eliminate the yellow straw completely from view.  Into the trash they went.