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Pick wildflower beads for spring

 By Bethany Waldrop Keiper

"You belong among the wildflowers... you belong somewhere you feel free." -- Tom Petty

The early days of spring have been slapping me around this year - how about you? Here, some days the temperatures are in the 70s, some days they are in the 30s, and 80 percent of the days are coated in yellow-green pine pollen. Welcome to the South! But those days were in March.

Now that April is here, it is time for spring showers to reveal the sweet colors of the tiny flowers blooming everywhere in the new grass. Almost all of their names are a mystery to me, which is a shame. The few moments it takes to stop and look for these delicate blossoms is well worth it, for they are only available to us for a few weeks of the year, and are ruined forever if a careless foot destroys them.

Fortunately, talented lampwork bead artists are able to bring facsimiles of these miniature miracles to us year 'round with their amazingly detailed and realistic beads.

A pretty teal-green Venetian (or wedding cake) oval bead gets the prettiest "heavy metal" makeover ever as it's wrapped inside and out in swirling sterling silver wire to both enhance its beauty and give it a solid structure as a focal bead for, in this case, an earring. A silver earring wire is just the tops, while an opaque 4mm pink bead is the perfect match and a charming dangle to make things complete. So where are the wildflowers? Well, just like outdoors, look closely. There is, of course, a lovely wild prairie rose at the bead's center, and on either side, hiding in the goldstone are tiny blue and yellow wildflowers.

These round beads hold an entire garden of small, multicolored blossoms, with detail so fine that you can see curves of each petal and stem against the background color.

The intricacy of these beads amazes me. They look lovely surrounded by similarly delicate beads, such as softly swirled lampwork rounds in similar colors, and the warm glow of pearls. Gold accents add to the warmth and the rich, detailed mood of the design.

Another way to bring together pearly white and wildflowers is to choose this combination of beads.

These white oval beads are magic with their tiny floating pink flowers and little green leaves inside. I believe the little pink blossoms I've seen like these in the grass are called pink clover. Cap each end in sunny yellow gold, and alternate facetted Czech firepolished beads in shades of pastel green and softly swirled pink in between.

I hope sweet, sunny spring days find their way to you soon! Find a sunny spot and design something based on the beauty you see all around you.

Oval pink blossom beads courtesy of and available from the Bead Peddler. Wedding Cake beads and mixes of Venetian beads/Wedding Cake beads available from the Bead Peddler

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