CiM Plum revisited

I had hoped to post pictures of a great new set I made but this isn't going to be happening. Instead, what I have today is yet another oppurtunity to show off my learning experiences.

For a link to CiM's website and to see what others have done with this color click here http://www.facebook.com/?sk=messages#!/profile.php?id=100000449052869

They're putting me to shame today, I'll tell you.

I've blogged CiM plum before; click here to see previous post.

CiM plum is an absolutely gorgeous color that I am totally enamored with. It is an opal purple. OPAL. This should have been my clue. My test beads didn't crack because they tend to be very tiny and the stresses of compatibility issues and heat control don't get a chance to get a good running start. Like many opalino and special glasses, this one doesn't much like to be encased. I will try the tip of making them on a core of clear and see what happens, but am very disappointed with this lot. The only bead that didn't crack was the unencased one.

CiM plum remains a gorgeous color and one I will be using again. I especially like what it does with copper leaf under encasement. As a side note, when I was making these beads, they looked like they were going to be dark blue green when hot. They go purple after annealing. Don't worry about this. Now what I have to do is figure out a way to get a full sized bead to stay in one piece.

Yay! It's a vessel!

 I made a vessel!  I used CiM sapphire because I love the color and it is perfect for it.  It is stiff enough to hold its shape while I fool around with it in the flame and stable enough to not crack when I forget to reheat as often as I should.  Then I remember and bang it back into the flame and it behaves itself and doesn't blow apart.  This only happened to me once, when I first started, but I still have the bead on my bench somewhere.  It looks like it split open from the middle.

 I was very pleased with how this turned out.  I got the shape "right,"  not that there is a right shape other than to have a hole in one end, but it was the shape I had in mind.  It holds about 1ml so I can use it, and it's pretty symmetrical so it won't look bad hanging from a chain.  No, this one isn't going away.  I'm keeping this.

There were a couple things I feel I can improve on next time.  The handles are just a little too narrow to fit a chain of a size that will balance the bulk of the piece.  I'll use jumprings, but next time they are going to be bigger.

It isn't precisely symmetrical and I'm not sure if I can do this, but I need to try again and again before I give it up as a lost cause.

This is the biggie.  When I made it, I was thinking of it as a different type of hollow bead rather than as a transparent object with a bottom that would be transparent as well.  Therefore, I built up glass on the end of the mandrel  and worked it back toward the center rather than working straight toward the bottom.  I have removed the bead separator but am left with a rough surface where the separator was.

Still, I will proudly wear this and if I even think about the flaws it will be as a learning experience.

Finally, just because it's so blue, here's me playing with the editing software.

I hate taking pictures.

I made a great pair of earrings, which I just listed on Etsy and had a lot of "fun" with photography as well.  All the pictures in today's blog were taken with the same camera, outside in the same location within 15 minutes of each other.  The earrings look very different in each picture.  I'm glad Etsy allows multiple views of the same item.  The picture above is the one that I think looks the most like the earrings.  The artfully angled mini teapot is a neat prop, I think.  Except for the logistical challenge of getting the earrings to stay on the curved handle, this was an easy picture to take.  Not so much with the picture on the right.  It was taken with my trusty steel dish that I use in nearly every item I shoot and the first few tries came out looking bizarre and green.  I didn't want to photoshop this to death so experimented by varying the distance from the camera to the earrings to allow more light in and allow the camera's automatic light balancing feature to do its thing.

Now it's the time for me to dig out all the old curtains and slipcovers from my old house....I mean dig out all my backdrops.  Against medium grey, the earrings have a lot of shine and metallic look, but the colors are pretty grey as well.  Funny, I thought against the grey they would look less so.

 Against the beige they look pretty accurate as well.  With these pictures I didn't adjust the white balance or hue like I normally do, because there's always a little pixilation, which I was definitely trying to avoid.

 Same light, same camera, against a charcoal grey background.  Notice how the color has shifted entirely to coppery and reddish bronze rather than the plum and gold the earrings look to me against my hand.

This one came out so bizarre I didn't use it at all.  The background is a varied taupe and the earrings are NOT grey and green.  Can't imagine how the camera interpreted this.  It reminds me of a joke a history teacher did once, giving us a report on an archaeological dig and the interpretations of what they found, then telling us what it really was, because it was written from the point of view of a future person digging up an ordinary house.  Ceremonial wall trumpets for a shower head, that sort of thing.


What is the point of all this blathering?  Just to say once again that I hate taking pictures.

Tish, that's French!

I've got the song from the Addams Family stuck in my head.  I recently listed the earring set below on Etsy, named L'Heure Bleue after the way the intense blue, glowing color reminds me of twilight.  Of course, being a child when I was I immediately made the association, "Tish, that's French!" and viola!  I'm stuck with Gomez for the rest of the day.  The old one, not the excellent portrayal by the late Raoul Julia.

 These earrings seem to glow on their own just like the light at dusk seems to almost self-illuminate.  I love the glass, CiM sapphire, because everything I make with it does this.  I don't think you could make a truly horrible bead with this color.  I don't know whether it's the degree of saturation or the just-right frequency of light that it transmits, but it's a winner.

 How does it stack up against the innumerable transparent blues out there?  I only have a handful and I've got most of them pictured above and, except for the CiM sapphire, all are Effetre.  Up until a couple days ago, if you asked me what the perfect transparent blue was, I would have told you 060 cobalt on the top or it's fraternal twin, mosaic blue.  This is the blue most people think of when they think of blue glass.  Truth be told, in beads, it's just a shade too dark to show up well.  Mosaic blue is almost identical in intensity and hue, but I love what it does with silver glass.  The next rod down is 058, ink blue.  Yes, it looks darker than the cobalt, but this is a trick of the light and the camera.  It's less intense and slightly more red and grey.  057 is next and is more intense than sapphire, but it is again a hair too dark to be able to transmit that intensity in the bead.  Next is sapphire and finally, 056 medium blue, which is a good blue and shows up well in beads, but if you take an average person and show them a bead made with this, they will tell you that it is light blue.

Finally, above, a gratuitous shot of the first hollow bead I made that I felt good enough about to list.  It is CiM sapphire and DH aurae. 

I'm definitely going to be laying in a supply of this lovely glass.  It doesn't do for everything, and for what it won't work for there are other glasses to use, but if I could only have one shade of transparent blue in my palette this would probably be it.

Off the Wagon

Have you ever gone to a wedding reception while you're on a diet?  Did you stick to it, and if so, how much fun did you have?  That's how I feel with new colors in the stash.  So, like any weight watcher I'm forgetting all about the diet for a day or two.  Have I mentioned I love purple?  Effetre plum silver is one of my favorite colors, because it is purple and because the dark goes all neat and metallic.  The problem with the dark is that it doesn't really show purple and the problem with the light is that it doesn't go all metallic.  Vetrofond has come out with a new color that I think fills this gap.  It isn't as purple as plum silver light, nor is it as dark as plum silver dark, and it does have an earthy reduction that I like but can see the limitations of.  So on to the beads.  All except the first have been worked, cooled slightly, then reheated gently in the top of the flame of my hothead.

Of the beads to the right, the top bead and the bottom one are Vetrofond plum.  With the top bead, I just wound it off and shaped it, working a little high in the flame perhaps, but not paying particular attention to striking it.  The middle bead is metallic black to show the difference between the sheens.  On the bottom, I worked it as described and was thrilled that it is still a visible color.

 Time to see what it does when you work it with another color.  I didn't try it with silver or clear, mainly because I wanted to produce these beads specifically.  I'll play with it some more when I'm off the diet.  All are Vetro plum with metallic black stringer.  On top, I deliberately only reheated the surface of the bumps.  In the middle I feathered some metallic black in and was pleased to see the black develop that rainbow thing it does, but less pleased that it doesn't show up in the photo.  On the bottom is an attempt at a shell with black metallic decoration.  This combination is so cool because you can easily see the difference and the colors compliment each other.
With this last group of beads, I wanted to see how Vetro plum stacked up against the Effetre line.  It is even a bit lighter than the Effetre light and browner.  It won't work for everything.  But it is definitely a color I will be buying again.  And it is less than half the price of the Effetre dark silver plum so I can afford to.

My first cake tester

I made my first cake tester today.  Some folks call them plant stickers but I don't do plants.  I marvered the bead release off the mandrel and then marvered the hot glass onto the bare spot and gave it an extra shot of heat to make sure the glass was really welded onto the mandrel and never coming off.  Of course this wasn't what I meant to do.  Some of the things I do are just special that way. 

OK, I tried boiling and cold water to thermal shock the glass into cracking off the mandrel.  I thought about putting the cold glass into the torch and blasting it off.  This idea had value as a potential spectacle but the idea of shards of hot glass exploding into my lap didn't appeal after the initial inspiration.  I finally decided just to crush the thing off.  Why didn't I just use it as a cake tester as I had evidently intended?  Frankly, I didn't like the way the bead turned out anyway and if I'm going to have a cake tester I want it to be a good one.  So, grasping the mandrel firmly in the jaws of a vise grip, I held it in the bottom of the sink with my polycarbonate prescription glasses on.  I have safety glasses but didn't feel like digging for them.  Using my other pair of vise grips I applied firm pressure to the bead in several places.  Nada.  If only the beads I like were as resistant to breakage.  A good firm whack on a brick placed in the sink and the bead more or less split in two and fell off the mandrel.  Just a quick swipe or two with the dremel and a good scrub with the scrubby pad and the mandrel was good as new.

What is the point of this story?  I've learned that Bead-n-Go sludge is a fantastic bead release and doesn't come off unless you do something asinine like actually scraping it with a brass marver right at hole level.  On both sides.  I've learned that if the bead release should crack right next to where the glass starts, stop.  I've learned that when you've marvered the release off the mandrel and you simply must finish shaping your bead make sure one of the steps involved in your shape isn't pushing the hot glass onto the hot mandrel right where the bare spot is.  I've also learned that if you do manage all of this and want to see the mandrel clean again, dip it in the quenching jar while the bead is still hot.

First Wirewrap

Ta-da! This project marks a few firsts for me, mostly the first time I'm actually using a plaque from that set I bought 5 years ago, the first of many times I will be using semiprecious stones with my lampwork beads, and the first time I've tried wirewrapping.

This is for my own consumption since I am not happy about how some elements turned out. The bail in particular was a bit irregular and the brass wire got a little chewed. Note to self: Get another couple pairs of pliers I can dip so this doesn't happen. The wrap on the right came out a little crooked. The design itself came out just right which is why I'm pretty happy with this overall. I didn't expect perfection, which is why I used brass instead of silver. I will wear this and enjoy wearing this and from it I have learned how I want to do the next one.

Finally

I was so thrilled with how these turned out I couldn't wait to post them. I couldn't even wait to clean them, so please forgive the mandrels and bead release. They are both heavily encased and decorated in or on the encasement, and they are both on the diet! I can stick to the diet and still produce beads that I can use for a project, as long as it's the right project.

On the left is a base of CiM tuxedo, encased with CiM clear, decorated with a twistie of copper green and CiM Slytherin and a flower or two of CiM poi stringer encased with ink blue. On the right is a base of CiM poi, encased with CiM clear and decorated with dots of the copper green and slytherin stringer. I really dig the way the poi shifts by encasement with the ink blue, and also the way the copper green and Slytherin react with each other. I think the combination works with the plaques better than either color alone would have. Who knew?

For a double shot of my beads on the Creation is Messy site, and to find out more about poi, click here for CiM.

I couldn't just make 2 beads, so I dipped the clear in the DH reducing frit blend I had made and made a fritty bead with this. The glasses were Aion2, CE 352 (when it comes into production it will be Calliope), Aurae, Triton, and Psyche. The Psyche didn't reduce, but everything else did and looks fascinating under the clear. Now I'll have to make more of these, which will mean making more frit, so I can do something with them.

Confession time. This is off the diet, but I couldn't resist using some CiM Sherwood to make the beads on the right. On the left is plain, middle with a wrap of a Triton shard, and on the right is encased with CiM clear and dotted with poi. I love the way the Sherwood is still a bit streaky under encasement.

Ever notice the way your state of mind affects everything you do? Yesterday was a good day and everything went right. The beads turned out the way I pictured they would (when does that happen) I finished in time, and the weather even cooperated today with just the right amount of sun so I could take some decent pictures. I'm going to quit while I am ahead. I have a doctor's appointment today and am hoping to get back to the day job so I can buy more glass again.

One more thing from yesterday: I found a studio near me, about an hour away in Booneville. I didn't get a chance to look into much about it and, frankly, don't have the money until I go back to work to do anything about it, but at the same time, the prospect of taking my first class or two and using a proper torch is scary and intoxicating. Here's the link to their website, and they also have a Facebook page which is how I found them.CNY Glass Studio

Scratch One

These are the last 2 beads I'll be making out of this twistie. I like the color that the Aion2 turns when you reduce the heck out of it and cook it, and the copper green flower (?) makes it look like the twistie is ending or something, but for the amount of effort involved, I'm not sure it's worth the bother.

No one would ever be able to tell, but underneath both these beads is CiM slytherin unique (dark) and a wrap of silver foil, melted in and reduced, like everything else. I wrapped the twistie so heavily around that the bead that the bead is encased.

The Terra 2 entirely failed to strike but there's some weird milky stuff going on under the clear the twistie was wrapped around. Could be the Terra giving it a go. the flowers were not really all that recognizeable because I melted them in too much. Not much else to say except that slytherin doesn't mind some very thick encasement and it gets along swimmingly with silver glass.  To see what other artists have to say about a fantastic color and see my blog hit the big time click here for Creation is Messy.

This one I consider a fail not because of the Terra 2, which struck nicely in spots, but because of my miserable technique. I was concentrating too much on not doing bad things to the color of the twistie, which was already suspect and didn't pay attention to the ends of the bead, and then in a hurry to finish the bumps so I didn't melt them in as much as I should have. Not much to say except sloppy and yet another learning experience in the category of not sacrificing the basics for the extras.

I made a few beads today and I think they actually might have come out pretty well, or at least better than these did. They go with my green aventurine plaques that I posted last time. Can't wait to see what I find in the morning.

I need ideas.

I spent all day beating my head against the same wall regarding what I want to make next. One idea after another was begun, developed and discarded. I played with some CiM Hades and dark ivory after reading Dragonjools' blog from yesterday and the beads that resulted from this are nice and looked pretty cool before I stowed them. The way I feel about them is the way I would feel playing scales on the piano. It's technical practice and should be done, but the goal is to relate it to something else later. Training muscle memory for the mind.

I found this set of stones over the weekend when I was cleaning for inspection. I bought them at an event about 5 years ago and have barely set eyes on them since. I have moved them from a box to a drawer to a box to another box and each time said to myself that I really have to use them in something. They are 1" squares of green aventurine, about 1/4" deep, drilled diagonally just onto the faces from the corners so they overlap when strung. I want to do some sort of wirewrapped beads to go around the overlapping corners, or maybe wirewrap the squares themselves with the beads. The fact that there is a drill just in from the top corner means that I have to cover this with something. A bead might just be the thing.

All of the stones together are too much of a good thing. They would be uncomfortable to wear and poke, not to mention they don't hang together well. A few of them would be nice in a piece, with something else to add contrast. CiM poi is on the plate right now and with a couple of the freebie colors on the diet would brighten these stones a lot. I think I am onto something. Poi reacts with copper green, but I could put a layer of white or clear between the two. Something with round lines and more visual interest. I'm working on it. I'll mull this over and try out a few things and hopefully come up with something decent. At worst I have another drawer these can go into.

Creative Yearnings

After the drama over the weekend, I really have been having a rough time coming up with the desire to torch, let alone ideas of what to do when I get there. While Joe was trying, and failing, to teach me how to smith, he told me never to light the fire until you know what you want to do with it. Otherwise it's a waste of coal and time. After quite a bit of hemming and hawing and some heavy duty searching for inspiration, I decided I was going to try working with colors I haven't had much luck with to see if my luck had changed.

These four beads represent all of today's efforts. None will be used for anything other than experimentation, so into the annealing bubble I use for demos they went so I could see what they would look like today. The bead on top is my first effort, a twistie of clear, DH Aion2, and Terra 2. It looks almost like the Terra struck in the picture, because it's darker than the creamy Aion2, but I wasted so much gas trying to get the stupid flower right it unstruck again. Note to self: Do all the bead elements except the striking first and then strike the Terra. The Aion2 did develop a lovely mother of pearl sheen showing pink, lavender, blue and green that does not show up at all in the picture. The flower on the other side of the bead almost didn't get posted but, hey, who cares if I can't make flowers yet. I'm learning. Underneath it is a plain clear bead I encased with my stringer to see if I could strike it at all. It struck, but the Aion2 didn't come out. Figures.

The third bead down I will consider a success. It is TE331, which had come out as clear light aqua every other time I've touched it.  I know the beads above look like I got something out of it, but this is the sort of base state according to the info I got from Double Helix.  The red is the thermal striking. This struck! Now if I can clean up the color a bit I might be able to use it in a bead. The last bead is my favorite of the bunch. I decided to go with a base of CiM poi, since I know that likes silver glass and I don't think CiM ghee does at all. I made my base, wrapped and melted in my stringer and made my flowers, which I don't think came out badly. Then I struck the Terra. Lo and behold, it worked. I got some really cool color development out of the section around the copper green flower in the first picture, I think because that section got hotter before being cooled down and struck. The opal yellow one is neat, but I like the echo of the copper green in the base. I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but I'm going to try this with silver foil and slytherin next, and see what happens.

Death and Taxes

Nothing in life is certain except death and taxes, right? Well, if death is defined as a complete lack of health, I experienced both today to some extent. I did not experience beads, so if anyone who reads this doesn't want to read about my gripes, skip today.

I have been taking a prescription painkiller, not a narcotic, but stronger than the acetaminophen that is the only other pain medicine my doctor will allow. I stopped taking the pain meds 3 days ago out of concern for developing a physical dependence on it, since I seemed to need to take it more often to get the same effect. The first day wasn't bad. I took it in the morning and threw the rest away. Yesterday, day 2 was unpleasant but I was expecting that. Last night I slept barely a wink and today has been truly uncomfortable. I am hoping that what I am experiencing is the withdrawal from the meds and not the return of the leg pain that drove me to this in the first place. There, that is a greatly lesser absence of health than death, now, isn't it.

Taxes, not so much. I foolishly filled out my state paperwork without reading the fine print, like where it says that whether you have an income or not, you need to file if you have a tax ID number. I had assumed it was like personal income tax and I didn't need to file if I had no income. Ha, ha, ha. Now I know better. Next filing is due by, I think, July 1. I will have receipts and paperwork and know much better. They did have an option where you sent in a check and they call it even. Worth it so I don't have to find the forms and fill them out, mail them in, etc.

Plus side of all this was I got to throw stuff at my computer. Sounds pretty grim, doesn't it? I decided I was going to get a jump on the show and do the paperwork for that. One of the many items on my to-do list was make up business cards, which I did, by ordering them online. After designing an absolutely lovely card on my computer and discovering I was completely incapable of printing them up without redoing them on Joe's computer, since my computer isn't speaking to his printer and mine is in a box somewhere. Now all I have to do is come up with mini portfolios.

Did I make any beads today. Yes, I made seven. All spacer sized. None worth snapping a picture of. There are days like this.

Tomorrow is another day. Here's to tomorrow!

What was I thinking?

There were almost no pictures for today's post. I had stupidly removed the memory card from my camera in preparation for uploading them and then allowed myself to become distracted. Oh, is that a baby dragon?..........................................................................................................................................................

I do have a spare and could have just taken the pictures again, but that's not the point. A lonely little memory card the size of a postage stamp has no chance at all around here on its own. Either something hot will drop on it and melt it, or I'll crush it under my chair, or the cat will puke on it, or it will simply join the host of socks, money, jewelry and, yes, postage stamps that I will swear are around here somewhere but I will never see again.

I had a little argument with myself, lost, and decided I had to get organized. It was after about a minute of cleaning off my desk that the desire to avoid housework focused my mind to an extent no other threat could and I located the memory card. Huzzah! I can post.

The pictures above and below are the final ones in what I am calling my art nouveau set. Above are ink blue on the left and ghee on the right. I have already had a problem with ghee cracking, so I kept the encasement light and built the bead on a core of clear. It was later that I discovered that for whatever reason, Effetre's oliva nera seems to have the same problem. I picked up the dish to photograph these last night and discovered the oliva nera one was cracked in half. Black olive is a transparent color so shouldn't have a problem like this, but just in case I made another one on a core of clear and filed it away for future reference.

I really like the oliva nera bead I made late last night, risking the annoyance of my neighbors. I think the shape turned out very well even though I overfilled my lentil press in a way I haven't managed before. If this very stiff glass was any softer, it would have squirted all over the place. The black olive is on the right, with slytherin on the left. From Mind Melt's blog, I knew slytherin likes silver and silver glass, but it does some really great things. It was when I was looking at my photographs that I realized that the silvered ivory reminds me of pen and ink art nouveau work and coined the name for this set.

The bead I made with Slytherin is my favorite in this favorite set of beads, and it got me top billing on CiM's website.  Click the link to see what others have to say about this underappreciated color.

Here's the whole set. Slytherin is at 11:00 and I'll go clockwise from there. Slytherin, oliva nera, ink blue, poi, pearl grey, coral Martian strata, poison apple and ghee.

All jesting aside, I really am going to get some housework done now. I shouldn't be this disorganized.

Cheating on the Diet

OK, I am not technically cheating, since the glass I am using is allowed on my diet, as is the glass in the beads pictured below. However, rather than making beads this time I was making findings. I was assembling the pair of earrings on the left (listed yesterday on Etsy, by the way) and ran into the problem that the beads slipped off the headpins. Ack! I only had one left of the larger size I had previously so I had to improvise. I was making the loops at the top anyway so a quick loop at the bottom and the beads were going nowhere. It works on these earrings but I wanted a more permanent solution since this would not do every time I wanted to throw together a pair of earrings.

The Beadful Life at beadFX blog at this link http://beadfx.blogspot.com/2010/06/glass-headpins.html had posted a video showing how to make glass headpins and I decided to give it a whirl. These are super easy to do and took less than 10 minutes to do 8. I used basic black glass, CiM tuxedo in this case, and caught on pretty fast. I did learn a couple things even so. Make sure you have adequate ventilation because heating silver leaves a nasty taste in your mouth and is surely toxic. I made the first and then turned off the torch and turned on the fans. That done I was able to finish up. If you don't heat the silver or whatever metal you are using the glass will not stick and if you heat it too much the silver will melt and stick to the surface of the glass. You can just see this on the headpin with the green bead on it. It's grey. I'm going to try getting it off with a dremel tool because I can't etch it off like I would bead release on an ordinary bead. If metal gets in etching solution it will corrode and eventually dissolve, as well as releasing hydrogen gas. I'll get the surface oxidation off the wires with silver polish or a polishing cloth. I have a good polishing compound around here somewhere....

I have a couple more packages of these and plan on doing this for any earrings I make with them, but unless I need black I'll do them as I need them. I may do some copper wire I have hanging around, or brass, but I'm in no rush because I have lots of these.

Update: I assembled my first pair of earrings using the new headpins and an earring pair I didn't sell. I also learned a new lesson, which is that the glass can snap off in your hand if you're being stupid enough to hold it while you are wrapping the eye at the top. I find this a bit tricky and was thinking about executing a good loop without chewing into the metal. The next thing I was thinking about was if I cut myself or not and how bad it was. Luckily, my hands are tough and a bit scarred and the calluses took all the damage.

the diet continues

I've been working on a limited palette and having a lot of fun with embellishment. I've stumbled upon a combination that pleases me and will be making a set out onf the resulting beads. First, I am melting in silver foil and rolling in homemade DH frit blend, then applying a twstie of Psyche and opal yellow and an odd swirl or two of silvered ivory, then mashing. What is changing is the base glass. I've done Martian strata, poison apple, and now poi and pearl grey.

CiM poi is on the left and Vetrofond pearl grey odd is on the right. Both colors reacted nicely with the silver and silver glass by becoming less grey. Poi develops a warmth that wasn't present in any other combination I've tried so far and pearl grey becomes a sort of semitranslucent olive. The bubbling appearance of the sis continues. None of the pictures I've taken so far shows how the psyche struck, but I'm hopefull I'll find a way to do this by the time I have the set finished.

I am halfway through my palette with ink blue, ghee, oliva nero and slytherin left to go. Three of these colors are transparent and one's an opalino type. Can't wait to see what this does.

Hopefully the doctor will release me to return to work next week. I will have no time to torch then, but that is the tradeoff.

To see my discovery on CiM's site and find out more about this amazing color click here