How to Make Flour Dough Beads - How did you do that?

Flower dough beads

Flour dough beads

A mixture of handmade beads and bought beads.

Ingredients
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 1/2 cups cold water
Food coloring (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Thoroughly mix the flour and salt together.
2. Add water and mix well.
3. Knead the mixture just like you would if you were making bread for ten to fifteen minutes. or until it feels flexible like dough.
4. Using small pieces of the mixture, shape each piece into a bead.  You can made different shapes like balls, egg shapes, square, hearts etc.
5. Beads usually need holes to string them on ... make the holes with a wooden skewer or any other long pointy object that you have on hand.
6. Place the beads on a baking tray and bake in an oven at 250ºF or 120ºC for two or three hours or untill they are completely dry and hard to the touch.
7. Remove the beads from the oven and let them cool naturally. A fan might help if you are in a hurry.
8. Decorate the beads with paint in plain colors or you coud add dots or stripes to make them look pretty. Dry them on a skewer or long piece of coathanger wire to protect your paint job. 
   
9. When the paint is completely dry you can coat them with varnish or ... I like to use Royal Coat by plaid.
   

Some paper beads drying on skewers.  I drilled holes in a piece of timber to stick the skewers in to hold them upright.  This also keeps them from touching each other.  You can do this to dry them after painting or varnishing.