We recive many requests each year for rosaries. We have added this page to encourage parishes and schools to consider making their own, with whatever materials are locally available! It is very simple, and must please Our Lady very much to see such care taken. It is notable that the three shepherd children of Fatima had simple rosaries made of wool or string on which to pray. Our Lady appeared to them… It is not what your rosary is made of that is important, but what is held in your heart.
Why buy one when you can do a better job yourself?
A rosary designed for carrying loose will have a cross which does not tangle with the beads, damage pockets or catch in everything it touches. The chaplet will be one which does not have to be untangled before use.
Spherical beads are the most comfortable to finger and, if strung and not wired, make for the most compact rosary in relation to their size. However, a wired rosary, once broken, cannot be satisfactorily mended, whereas anyone who has access to cord or string and who can tie a bowline knot, can string a rosary.
If the beads used for the ‘Paters’ or ‘Our Fathers’, are larger or of different shape than those used for the ‘Aves’ or ‘Hail Marys’, then no other separation between the beads of the decades is required. Simply thread the beads, then, with the addition of a dab of strong glue on the knot before tightening and by using rot proof or waxed cord, the rosary will last a lifetime, provided the hole in the beads is smooth.
So why buy one when you can do a better job yourself? Why not encourage the art of rosary making? At Crown of Thorns we have received many beautiful homemade rosaries, handmade in various countries of the world, made of materials found abundantly in their country of origin. Tiny round shells, dried pulses and beans, or just a simple string with knots.
If you are to make a rosary, why not dedicate each bead as you thread it, with an individual prayer intention. In this way you will never forget to offer prayer for deceased friends and relatives and for your own family members, and you will not be distracted from your meditation on the mysteries. Even if you fail to remember whom the individual beads are dedicated for, God will not fail to recall your requests.
(Excerpt from; ‘The Complete Guide to the Rosary’ Lisa de Quay and Dudley Plunket. Crown of Thorns ©)
A rosary made of shells! 
A crochet rosary. 
A rosary made using dried beans. 
A drilled-wood rosary. 
A simple string Rosary. 
A wooden rosary.
(Above) Video credit to the Westminster Diocese Youth Ministry.