Tutorial: Make a tama (bead hair stick)

One of the things I bought when I was in Kyoto last year was a tama - a hair stick with a large bead on it, like the ones worn by maikos. Traditionally these come in two colours, red and green, red being worn from October to May, and green from June to September. The tama I bought was green, and ever since I've been wishing that I had bought a red one too!

But that's not a problem, I found a way to make my own!

1. Cut a wooden kebab skewer to between 15 and 20cm, depending on how long you would like it, measuring from the pointy end so you are keeping the point (I use jewellery snips to do this, but strong kitchen scissors would probably work, just be careful the end doesn’t ping in your face)

2. Sand the cut end

3. Make an end out of black polymer clay in a sort of flattened angled triangle shape.
4. Poke the pointy end of the kebab skewer in this to make a hole, but don’t go all the way through. Bake the clay.

5. Paint the kebab skewer black

6. Paint a 2cm (approx) bead either bright red or apple green

7. Glue the bead in position about an inch from the end of the skewer, and glue the polymer clay end in place  (if you want to, you can paint a design in gold paint on the bead at this point)

8. Varnish the completed hair stick, making sure that the bead has a high glossy shine (that's what I used the floor polish for!)