You might have seen or made French bead flowers that were beautifully made, but didn't look quite right. Possibly they looked stiff and artificial. Here is some advice to help you make bead flowers that are graceful and charming.

Here are a few ideas that will help your flowers to be their loveliest and most natural-looking. You can use these tips even if you are making a "fantasy" flower. A flower is a flower, after all, and even if the one you have created doesn't yet grow in nature, odds are that someday some botanist will develop it.

When making the petals and leaves, reduce the bottom basic wires to two instead of three. It may seem insignificant, but this one improvement will make a big difference in each flower. The flower stems should be as narrow as possible, so reducing these wires is important.

Be sure to cover all stemwires of each leaf, center, petal and sepal before construction of the flower. Tape tightly and use as little tape as possible. This will reduce "wobble" in your finished flower. Living flowers' parts don't move and neither should the parts of bead flowers. Be sure you have used enough wire for the stems of petals and leaves; leaving these wires too short can cause the flower to fall apart.

During construction, wrap the construction wire and tape as tightly as possible. If you are adding many layers of petals, stop after each layer and cover the construction wire wraps with green tape. I have found that, on large flowers that require many rows of flowers, construction wires for early rows tend to show through later rows. If green tape is all that is visible, the eye will ignore it; messy wire will pull the eye and ruin the flower's beauty. Push sepals right up under the base of the flower. Think of sepals as being a warm muffler in the winter: you plump that up right under your chin. A sepal that seems to spring right from the base of the flower will make the flower look rich and luxurious.

Now that you have the flower built, allow yourself to use some imagination. Take a look at living flowers. Observe two roses or two daisies growing in a garden or at the local nursery. You will see variations among the individual blooms. Examine the way the stems may bend. Do the flower heads tip forward? Do some petals curve or curl more than others? Does a leaf twist rather than unfurl straight?

To copy nature's variations, you have a few tools at your disposal. The common pencil can help you make your roses breathtaking. Push the tip of your thumb into the bottom third of your rose petal, then curl the top backwards around a pencil. This will give the petal the shape that many varieties of rose possess. To make a twisted leaf, use two pliers (one at the top and one at the bottom) and twist in opposite directions. This effect can also be achieved by holding the leaf in a hemostat and using one plier to make the twist. For more shape, curl the top of the leaf backward a bit. Alternately, you can make a long and pointed shape by creasing the leaf or petal along its central or basic row, then flaring the sides out to complete the curve of the piece. You can combine these techniques to make infinite variations in the look of your flowers.

When the flowers are arranged in sprays, be sure to bend the tallest stem once to the left and once to the right. The top of the tallest stem should usually take another small bend so that it points straight up. Secondary stems can have one bend in them. This will give the spray motion and flow. To get this shape, you can use a plier in one hand or a plier in each hand; if you like going low-tech, just use your fingers.

Most importantly, relax and enjoy the process. As you work with the flowers more and more, you will develop a "feel" for how they should look. With patience and practice, your flower-arranging skills will improve and give you great satisfaction with your arrangements.

As in the other arts, after the introduction of the Renaissance, France imitated Italy in the making of pottery and porcelain, but native talent soon asserted itself and a truly French character became noticeable.

The earliest of the famous French potters was Bernard Palissy (1510-1502), a great designer and painter on glass who first made pottery in imitation of metal work and later originated designs in fantastic and grotesque forms, using reptiles, masks, leaves, (flowers, fossil shells and other rustic forms which were modeled in relief on plates, pitchers and useful articles.

He spent many years of his life in discovering and improving enamel which he considered a satisfactory coating for the rustic pottery which was so remarkably modeled. This pottery is very rare and only found in museums. It is often found to be reminiscent of the design of early wood burning fireplaces.

Italian majolica was first introduced into France about 1692, and reproductions of it were known as French faience. In the city of Nevers the Italian pottery was indifferently copied, and gradually Persian and other Near Eastern influences were seen in the decorative motifs. Another locality of early faience was in the city of Rouen, where manufacturing was started about 1644.

The faience made in this city became more delicate and refined in quality and also in the character of the designs used. Many of the designs for platters were arranged in a graceful radiating pattern of small blue, green or yellow flowers on a cream background. We also find arabesque, Lambrequin, cornucopia and sheath and arrow patterns. Rouen pottery had a great influence in the popularizing of this material for household use.

During the latter part of the 18th century, faience was also made at Mousliers, Marseilles. Sceaux. Strasbourg, and St. Cloud, all of which reflected the decorative designs of the day, particularly in the naturalistic flower patterns rendered in the Louis XVI manner. The supreme effort of the French porcelain makers, however, was centered in the factory of Sevres situated on the outskirts of Paris.

This factory received financial support from the French kings beginning about 1756 under the reign of Louis XV. To thoroughly appreciate Sevres porcelain, we must think for a moment of the glorious days of the court life of France. It was Madame de Pompadour, the favorite of the King, who assisted so much in producing its brilliant results.

It was she also who encouraged the artists and urged the chemists to experiment with various local clays which ultimately led to the discovery of kaolin in Germany, the missing element that was necessary to make true porcelain in Europe. After the discovery of this new material, the secret soon spread over all Europe, and. from this period on, we find that the production of pottery and soft-paste porcelain decreases and the making of true hard porcelain increases, which in turn made porcelain fireplace design ideas more feasible.

The designs and decorations on Sevres porcelains during the reign of Louis XV show the subtle curves that are seen in other contemporary forms of art. Delicate pastoral scenes in pastel shades and chinoiserie designs painted in miniature were framed in the most exquisite background colors of bleu du roi, turquoise, canary yellow, apple green, Rose Pompadour, and a profusion of gold. The Sevres factory is still in operation under French Government control, and is now introducing a great variety of porcelain forms in design and craftsmanship in a modern decorative character.