How to Make Stars Out of Mardi Gras Beads

Turn your Mardi Gras beads into stars for event or room decorations or as gift tags. Mix and match bead colors and styles. Stars don't have to be perfectly symmetrical, but they can be different sizes.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Mardi Gras beads
• Heavy gauge jewelry wire spool
• Jewelry pliers with needle-nose point
• Wire cutters
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Jewelry work tray

1. Lay your Mardi Gras beads on a jewelry work tray. Snip the string on the beads with scissors and carefully remove the beads from the string. Discard the string.

2. Unwind about 6 inches of heavy gauge jewelry wire from the spool. Straighten it as much as possible with your hands. To make a five-point star with 4-inch points (on two sides), measure 42 inches of the wire and cut with wire cutters. This allows an extra 2 inches to work with.

3. With jewelry pliers, bend 1 inch of one end of the wire almost parallel to the wire. This is to prevent the beads from falling off while putting them on.

4. Use one other end of the jewelry wire like a needle and slip on the Mardi Gras beads in the color and bead style design desired. Continue adding all the beads up to 2 inches from the end of the wire.

5. 
    
   Beaded wire bent at 4-inches

   Using the ruler, measure and bend the wire with beads every 4 inches to make a star point in a zigzag fashion (see illustration).

6. Lay the zigzag beaded wire on a work table. With jewelry pliers, unbend the wire at one end so it meets the other end of the wire. Cross the two wire ends together and twist them around each other tightly with pliers two times to secure the ends and create a full beaded star. Cut the excess end wires with wire cutters.

Tips & Warnings

• A jewelry work tray has sides and a slight felt finish to keep beads from rolling off. Sometimes it has compartments for different beads. To make a star point more "pointy," squeeze two wires of beads together gently.