One of the truly fun and innocent things in life are door beads. The Victorians, usually against anything fun or frivolous, especially in public, used door beads, so they cannot be immoral. You can use door beads to add a touch of color or humor in a place where there is usually neither: a doorway. And door beads distract the eye from lies beyond, so you can mask the room beyond without blocking air movement and light.
Door beads are made from several materials, including wood, plastic and bamboo. The wooden beads are usually left in natural colors with a clear finish. Geometrical designs can be formed by varying the placements of light and dark beads on adjacent strings. Overall the effect is elegant and organic because of the natural wood finish. Sometimes the wooden beads are painted instead of being left natural. In this case the door beads can be any color and the visual interest, besides the color, will be in the varying shapes of the beads and how the shapes and density of strings influence the appearance of the door from a distance.
Door beads made from plastic are usually made by pressing the plastic in shapes onto the string directly, instead of stringing them like beads. This allows the plastic shapes to be spaced along the strings, as well as using several shapes or sizes on each string. Plastic door beads come in many colors, and can also have an iridescent or matte finish added to the beads. The shapes vary from simple shapes, like drops and spheres, to the complex: animals, flowers, birds, bugs and almost any other shape you can think of. It is the possibilities of shape that make the plastic door beads so interesting. Playing card suits, dogs and fireplugs, cats and mice, or suns and moons are only a few of the plastic door beads available. Look at stores with black-lights, tourist items or teenager materials for these fun door curtains.
Finally, there are bamboo curtains in which the design is usually painted and is a unified design for the whole door curtain. You can get symbols like the smiley face, yin/yang or the US flag. There are also scenes like beaches at sunset, or dolphins playing in the waves. Oriental designs are popular, perhaps due to origin of the bamboo. There are door beads depicting bon-sai, dragons, pandas in bamboo groves, tigers, foo dogs and other Eastern designs. Western designs include lizards, cactus mountains at sunset and other subjects. The designs are painted on the bamboo beads after they are strung, and a clear finish is added to make the design last longer.
Door beads can be a fun way to decorate your home. They are light-hearted as well as colorful, and can be used over doors or windows. For a more unusual application, use door beads to decorate lamp shades or put them over the shower curtain to change your bathroom. Door beads can be hung between upper and lower cabinets to jazz up the back splash or divide the kitchen from the dining room.
The next time you want a temporary face lift for an area of a room, look at door beads. They may be able to provide that change for very little money.
* * * Add beads to a door curtain for beaded curtains. * * *
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