I use standard-sized fingers in many of my designs and the scrap between two pieces has the same fingers, so I end up with lots of those with fingers on one side or two. I make up the bits with one side as angles that I use to spread the force of a clamp, for example, when making the box shapes.
With the scrap with fingers on both sides, I can put four of them together and get a rectangular shape with a hole down the middle, they can be used as is or sanded to near round. Usually made of wood, regular wood glue works well. I have not tried to go much farther, but if beads were the main point, using several types of wood could make spectacular long beads and the fingers create a lot of extra strength, which is why I use them.
Where there is enough length I also make handles such as for files.