I admired this bead very much at the spring bead bonanza, and Anita agreed to trade it (or a copy, if it sold) for a grey pixie floral vessel with purple flowers, since she really likes grey. I didn't think to photograph my bead. Well, hers didn't sell, so I opened my PO box one day to find this lovely treat.

16x48mm. 3/32 mandrel. Effetre, gold leaf, acid etched. Acquired, spring 2009.

Both Anita and I enjoy making florals, but our goals are just a bit different. For example, I like my leaf cane to be subtly striped; whereas she prefers bold, graphic stripes, as you see in the brown contrasting with the pea green here. In that way, she takes after Kim Fields, whom I believe she cited as an influence. I think it's fair to say that for her, like me, Kristin Frantzen Orr is also an influence: note the two colors of floral cane, darker in the back, and lighter in front, in a floral shape that Orr often uses in her beads.

another view.

One happy accident that Anita discovered is that dipping beads coated in gold leaf doesn't etch the gold off—which hazily recalled various Sherlock Holmes stories and assorted college chemistry experiments, and the thought that gold isn't terribly reactive, hence its popularity in surgerical, hardware and jewelry applications, because it doesn't oxidize (which, come to think is not at all the same thing as saying it doesn't dissolve in acid. But a little online research suggests the gold dissolves in nitric acid, and the main ingredient in glass etching compounds is hydrofluoric.)

In any event, the happy result is something Anita feels is her own variation, and I'm very happy to have a sample of it.

photos, file 29apr09.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.