Design Tip

Design Tip Achives:
Wedding Cake Beads, Rainbow of Colors, Focal Beads, Leaf Beads Part 1, Leaf Beads Part 2, Earth Tones, Beaded Tree Ornaments, Heart Designs, The Meaning of Colors, Mix and Match Beads

Oval beads make great Easter, spring designs

By Bethany Waldrop Keiper

"The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell." -- Zora Neale Hurston

Oval-shaped beads have always reminded me of pretty Easter eggs. Fortunately beads have a quality that actual Easter eggs don't -- you can keep them indefinitely. Did you ever try to keep an especially pretty Easter egg as a child? I did, and I will never forget the result. Neither will my Mom, who had the misfortune to find them in my closet a few weeks later.

As Easter time approaches, oval beads can find a home in your spring designs. Springtime and eggs have long been intertwined. Eggs were a part of many rite-of-Spring celebrations, and people of ancient cultures gave each other colored eggs. The seemingly commonplace egg was revered by these cultures as a symbol of the universe. More recent cultures with a Christian influence liken the egg to the rebirth of man and the resurrection of Christ.

Even the most revered customs do not keep natural eggs from spoiling. Perhaps this is yet another reason why Peter Carl Faberge's everlasting eggs were so prized. His exquisite designs made his name synonymous with beauty and intricate detail.

The Danish Palaces Egg is one of Faberge's pastel creations, and it is a lovely example of spring colors. Its background color is that of translucent pink enamel. Faberge's eggs were often decorated with pearls and rose diamonds. To get your own pearly and rosy spring treasure, start with white oval beads, with floating pink rosebuds and tiny green leaves inside. Cap each end in sunny yellow gold, and alternate facetted Czech firepolished beads in shades of pastel green and softly swirled pink in between.

Many of the Faberge eggs feature bold backgrounds of dark-colored enamel. This may seem like a strange choice for an Easter egg, until you consider how well shadowy hues bring out the tiny, shimmering, jeweled details that the eggs are famous for possessing.

Aqua blue has always been one of my favorite Easter egg colors, and nothing shows it off better than a black background. These black focal beads, with their centered gold band and aqua swirls, combine beautifully with short, gold-lined aqua tubes, aqua firepolished beads, gold accent beads and golden bead caps.

These focal beads, with their shining gold bands, are reflections of other Easter eggs given a golden treatment long ago. In the year 1290, English king Edward I recorded in his accounts the amount of 18 pence was spent to buy 450 eggs to be gold-leafed and colored for Easter gifts.

The centered golden dial on Faberge's Cukoo egg reminds me of the centered band and swirled circular roses found on wedding cake beads. To bring even more opulence to these spectacular beads, choose two perfect black ovals, elegantly banded, with exceptionally good frit work. The beads' bright pink rosettes, and blue and yellow frit dots are so vibrantly beautiful against the black background. Next, crown each one with bead caps and accents in gold or silver, and you will have a pair of earrings that no one can resist.

For more information on Faberge's history and amazing talent, check out this month's Beading Culture story.

References:
Faberge eggs history and pictures: An Online Article
Egg Traditions Decorated Egg Traditions
White oval beads, and pink and green firepolished beads, courtesy of The Bead Peddler

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