Altered CD and easy homemade beads

One of the nicest things I've done for my creativity was joining the "Off the Page" group at the Stampin' Dymonz Scrap Shack. I really just joined to see what people came up with, but this is a really active group and you get pulled right in despite yourself! The first project I tried was the "Altered CD/DVDs" theme:
It's just a thing, although I might remake it as an actual clock. I made the clockface stencil in SCAL (there's a download link to the SVG in my supply list below), and cut it on the Cricut directly onto adhesive masking paper. Wow, that works so well. I stuck it on the CD and painted it with acrylic paint. The stencil came off easily, and I like the effect of the actual CD showing through. I used my Crop-O-Dile for the holes and edged the CD with shiny purple nail polish. I hand-printed a favorite song chorus onto the center:

"Only time can write a song that's really really real;
The most a man can do is say the way its playing feels;
And know he only knows as much as time to him reveals."
Richard Hell & the Voidoids: lyrics / song

I didn't have any embellishments that worked, so I made my own! The beads and center were all made with opaque polymer clay that I colored with Copics after baking. Here's a quick photo tutorial of how I made the spiral beads shown in the top photo:

That was really quick, wasn't it? If you don't want to have to take the beads off the tool, you can bake them on wooden skewers; just soak the skewers in water first. Then just bake them: about 15 minutes at 275F, or according the the package directions.

Tools: Crop-O-Dile, oven (to bake clay), SCAL & Cricut
Other: Ranger acrylic paint (thanks Stampin' Dymonz!), Elmers gel pen, Copic markers, ZipDry glue, Inkadinkado masking paper, tulle, Sculpey polymer clay, nail polish
Stencil: download SVG file (please let me know if you do, by commenting; and I'd love to see your projects)