What could compliment the Beads on my Flat Top Casket???

Why, Feathers, of Coarse!

 Aren't these colors pretty!? I think so!  This is the colour palette I have chosen for one of the butterflies on the front frieze of my flat top casket.  I was really really trying to stick to my bead only rule....but he's a butterfly....I mean come on... he needed a little 'kick'!

 I left these two pictures large so you can click on them to see better~ his body is lustre beads, with real peacock feathers worked in. Its hard to get the effect on the camera~ he just looks a little fuzzy I guess....and makes the looker really stick their nose in and then they say....'are those feathers in there?'

Yep! There sure are I say! Here you can see how fuzzy he is, and depending on the angle at which you view the feathers, his body changes from green to golds....I thought it a perfect effect for the lid, one of the few moving parts of my flat top. There are so many antique 17th c caskets and embroidery panels that have the remnants of feathers that once were there (especially caterpillars and bugs)....its really easy to see why they used them so much. When I finished his body I liked it so much my mind immediately was racing to think of what other areas I could use them in!