Waite Adventures: My obsession.....

About 2 months before returning home, I went shopping for beads with my friend Susan. It soon became a favorite past time for us to buy beads and then to make beautiful necklaces out of them. So I am going to share with you as to why beads became such an obsession. I first went to a factory to learn how they made the beads and I became so impressed that I decided that this would be the perfect souvenir/gift giving thing.

As you can see the bead process starts at a young age. Isn't he so cute. He was showing off for us and making all the Ghanaian workers laugh.

This is the CD Bead Factory owned and operated by the family. They export their beads to all over the world and bead fanatics also come to Ghana to buy their beautiful hand-made glass beads.

The first step is to pound the glass into powder by hand of course. They just put the glass bottles in there and pound until they get the consistency that they want.

Next, they pour the powder into molds. Now, there are of course colored bottles; brown, blue, green, clear, red (very rare, so of course more expensive), etc. If they want to make a colored bead that they don't have glass for, then they add a colored dye to that powder to get the more vibrant color. They take these little hand made tins and scoop the powder and pour it into clay molds. The clay is found underneath termite mounds and is tolerant in extremely high heat. They mold the clay for all their different bead shapes and sizes. Now, pouring the powder is no simple trick. Some yes, if they just want a plain colored bead, but many of the beads have designs. So, they take a tiny stick to help guide the powder to the design that they want and then grab another color and pour it where they want it, etc.

This is just to show you all the different types of molds you can have. The wooden sticks that are shaped (like the star) are for their star, fish, flat circular, etc. molds. They pour the powder in and then press it down with a stick of the same shape. They also have a tiny stick made of bamboo in the center of the beads for the hole to string them with. Not only do they make beads out of powder, but they also take broken or old beads and place them in the molds to get multi-designs or just to repair beads. They also take the broken glass (when it's tiny chunks of glass) and pour that into the molds. This gives a different look to the beads and adds variety. they have clear beads, solid colored, multi-powdered designed, and hand painted designed beads.

The powder is put into molds and then the molds are put into a furnace or kiln and fired for about 40 minutes. As soon as they are done, they are taken out and immediately they must take this little dowel? (a stick with a nail at the end) and poke the holes into the beads while the glass is still hot and maleable. (because of course the bamboo sticks burnt off). Yes, of course all these workers have scars from cut wounds from the glass and burns that they receive from retreiving the molds.

You can see how he takes the stick that is U shaped and moves the molds in and out of the hand made kiln which is also made from the termite mound clay I think.

Do you see how far out the flames come from that thing! Look back up in the previous picture and look at how close he sits to that! Let me tell you....it is HOT in Ghana and it was VERY hot just standing 30 ft. away. I can't imagine sitting 7 ft. away...ALL DAY. We asked our tour guide if they switch jobs around. he said yes, but only one job a day. So he might have the job of crushing glass to powder, but he does that all day from about 4am until 6pm. So if you have the fire job, you sit outside that thing all day. I thought that they would rotate throughout the day, but they do it day by day. Also, look at all of the molds. They have large beads that take one mold to itself and tons of tiny beads. This is a factory of course, so their going to have tons of molds.

Now, once the beads are cooled then they take them out and wash/polish them in sand water. If they are finished then they get strung onto string. However, if they are going to be hand painted, then they get handpainted with very detailed artwork and must be fired again for another 20 minutes to seal in the paint, have the holes pressed in again, and washed and polished again before stringing.

a big pile of beads waiting to be put on the string. They sell the beads on large strings like the size of a necklace here at the factory. If you go to the market, then they are put on strings the size of a bracelet and sold in packs of 2.

Once I buy the beads then I make them into necklaces. Thank you Rake for being such a great model. Really, you could be a neck model! If you look at this necklace, it has many different types of beads. There is a brown one with blue, white, and gold stripes. That is made from powder and each stripe had to be poured carefully. The blue bead is a clear bead just glass powder with no dye. the yellow, small brown, and white beads are powder with dye added. You can obviously see the different shapes of these 3 beads. now, the other skinny brown bead is actually fried watermelon seeds. They use different kinds of seeds for their necklaces that they make and you can buy strings of fried seeds in the markets. Also you can find seashells, rocks, bamboo, and stone. If they can use it in a necklace and sell it to make money then they will.

Here are some of the necklaces, bracelets, and earrings that I have made myself with the beads I got in Ghana. I got everything there, the pliers, wire, hoops, etc. I have made MANY more than this. This is just a small sample to show.

This is what a traditional Ghanaian necklace looks like. They put a bunch of random beads together and make it as chunky looking as they can with a giant bead in the middle. Their necklaces are much bigger than this. Meaning the size of the beads are bigger. I bought small beads, but you can buy huge beads. However, they are very expensive and usually worn by those who have the money or chiefs. My friend Ana made this necklace for me.

Another picture of the necklaces. Most of these are mine. I made them to match the CRAZY dresses and shirts that I had made there. The cloth is so crazy that it helps to have beads that actually match.

This was the original reason that I went bead shopping. Many of the sister missionaries have these beautiful pottery bowls filled with the beads you buy at the market as a center piece. I wanted to do that too, but took it a huge step further. You can see the star beads. Most of these in the bowl are just different colors of the clear powder beads and the ones outside the bowl are either powder with dye beads and hand painted beads. Do you see the blue beads near the top left? They have circles on them? That is all hand painted. It's insane!!!!

this is the little CD bead factory shop where you can buy their beads. They are more expensive than at the market but also better quality too. You really can tell a difference.