Glass Fruit

For a while I was trying to pick up old venetian glass fruit beads at the flea market - the crusty old ones with the textured glass. Then one day, I just stopped seeing them - it seemed as if a whole lot of other venetian fruit fans were out there scooping up the glass before I saw it. So I started to look for other types of glass beads that could be used as fruit beads. English cut cherry red beads clustered together with an odd leaf turned into instant vintage cherries; old glass peach and Bakelite orange buttons looked like they were picked right off of the orchard tree; and old caned lemon druk beads were the perfect substitute for lemons. In the coming month at French General, we open up our collection of everything horticulture - fruits, berries, stamens, flowers, buds, leaves, stems, blossoms, seeds, and petals...we might even throw in a bird or two! A vast group of notions that are a little bit organic and a whole lotta Carmen Miranda. We're also adding a millinery section to offer all sorts of vintage velvet flowers and leaves, celluloid fruit and hand-made stamens. I never get tired of the botanical inspiration.