Etching Gold Leaf

I just finished a special order that was fun, a challenge, and a learning experience (doesn't it always go that way?)!  I attempted to acid etch sets of beads that had been decorated on the surface with gold leaf.  I had success with some glass types, and here are my results:

Effetre Dark Purple Handmade

Effetre Anice White

CiM Canyon de Chelly

Effetre Dark Ivory

Effetre Mosaic Green

The challenge is that the gold leaf etches right off with the glass in the etch bath!  By cutting my etch time down from a usual 3 minutes to 1 minute and 15 seconds, I was able to get a good etch on the glass and preserve most of the gold.

I learned that some glasses etch faster than others, like Canyon de Chelly and Ivory, making it harder to get gold leaf to stay on these glasses.  And gold leaf stains Ivory glass a beautiful golden brown color which is a nice contrast with the shiny gold leaf.

I tried decorating some transparent colors with gold leaf and etching them, but transparents usually give me a spotty, incomplete etch, so these sets didn't work out.  Sandblasting or tumbling would etch transparent glass, but my gold leaf would definitely not have survived that onslaught!

Have a great beady week peeps!
:)