Polymer Clay "Bump" Beads

A friend of mine is having a 10th anniversary for something. I am going to make her a fun, bright, polymer clay bead watch for a present. Here are the steps I took to make the beads.

After conditioning the clay, I put it through the pasta machine at 1.








Then I cut out pieces with the same cookie cutter so that all the beads would be the same ize. I came up with this idea and I think it works much better than making a snake and then cutting segments.
Next, I added dots to the beads. Each bead here has 5 dots/bead.
Here's what they looked like before cooking. I raised them off the tray with cardboard prior to baking.















After cooling, I put on two coats of gloss varnish. I didn't like this stuff in the picture and ended up using something else.