Anyone with Jewelry making experience?

[scoobied]

Hello,
Does anyone have any suggestions to make sand into nice hard polished beads?
sand like this..


Also, for you creative jewelers out there. Give me some Ideas I can use to turn this into something pretty.

If you give me a good idea, and I use it, I will send you some of my most colorful sands.

I have sands of many colors so be creative!

[mikeyrocks]

I frequently get requests from people doing inlay work in wood, counter tops, etc. for colored sand and chips to be used for accents or designs. it can be used with any casting resin to make any number of things. cheers.....mikey
PS....you can buy beads wholesale cheaper than you could make them with you own sand. do something else with it....list it on ETSY for those folks in need of supplies, they will find lots of uses for it.

[cas]

I do not have jewelry experience, but I think the epoxy is a good idea. I wonder what would happen if you sprayed wooden beads (with the hole already drilled )with an adhesive of some type,rolled the beads in sand and then sealed it with something after it dried? It would have an interesting texture. The only other thing I suppose you could do is use a torch to fuse the sand, but I doubt you could make beads from that. Good Luck and Happy Creating!