Bead Color Ideas: Winter Green

Here on the West Coast, winter scenery is a little backwards. All summer long the grass gets baked to a golden brown, and then becomes lush and green again with the almost constant winter rain. This climate quirk has inspired me to try out some winter palettes with a more vibrant green than the deep velvet of holly leaves and pine needles.

The perfect character to play this part are some beautiful carved bone tubes from Happy Mango Beads. The finish isn’t uniform, giving them an organic, mossy finish. The colors range from olive to chartreuse, with little white stars scored into the surface.

First I paired the green bones with light and wintry blue, and shiny jet black for contrast. Although we miss the leaves when they’re gone, the look of branches in silhouette on a bright winter sky is a welcome one! The greens definitely have a coolness to them in this trio, like moss with a layer of frost. There’s a certain watery-ness to this palette, which I decided to call Frozen Creek.

Of course I couldn’t resist trying out some bright opaque red. Adding white seemed a little too obvious, and probably wouldn’t have a very festive effect on the lighter greens. Instead, I tossed in a handful of gold Swarovski Elements pearls. Antique Centerpiece has a warm elegance, like a favorite decoration that gets passed on from one generation to the next.

Finally, I wanted to try out a complementary palette, starting with lovely olive green seed beads. Transparent rootbeer brown provides a little light and some additional organic color for this palette. With so much green, this one could only be called November Lichen.

Are you using your winter greens right now? Which shade do you prefer?

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