Back in Business

I'm delighted to announce that I've finally been able to make some new beads!

Here they are

 Waterlilies frit on CiM Stoneground with silver foil above.  Below, a base of CiM Tuxedo, rolled in light Oxford Thompson Enamel, then decorated with scrolls of more Tux.  I hadn't used enamel before but I'm loving it!

 Above is Effetre dark ivory (the curdled batch) with scrolls of Double Helix Psyche.  Below, a base of dark ivory with Tuxedo and Effetre 14K, light topaz and medium topaz.

 I made a couple cupcake beads and some Caribbean type beads with CiM Freemen, Effetre blue aventurine and Devardi green aventurine.

I just had to share - making beads again is wonderful!

Fascinating Effect

If you're looking for a bowl of bead soup click here.

Things have been a bit chaotic here the past week, with a surprise visit from my daughter and some of life's challenges, but I did manage to get a bit of time at the torch.  I had intended to make more Halloween beads with orange and purple and am still looking for the perfect purple.  EDP devitrifies too much to use and reacts with orange as well.  Evil Queen reduces to a bit of a metallic sheen and devitrifies a bit.  Ditto light silver plum (no surprise there) and Plum is too light and translucent and Mulberry is too dark.  I didn't even try Poi because I think it would grey out but I might as well.  You never know until you try.

 I did get a totally awesome effect with the EDP, though.  I think the 5-pointed star or flower effect is so cool and I love the way the orange faded.  The dark circle from the reaction makes this bead even cooler.  I wish the EDP hadn't devitrified so much.  It even made the black next to it bubble.

 Here's another view of the end.  I think this is so totally cool.  I wish I could figure out a way to use this bead so the end is out, since, sadly, the bead doesn't look like much from the side, where it would be seen with ordinary stringing.  Any ideas?

Beads on the Table

If you're hungry for some bead soup, here's the link for the necklace I made with Hilary Frye's beads.  http://fire-in-ice.blogspot.com/2011/09/soups-on.html  To see the full list of participants, here's the complete list. 

I've been on an evil eye kick and this focal is one of the  beads I made in this style.

 The core is CiM Tuxedo, which is my official go-to black.  It's very black, doesn't pit or boil or go metallic or do anything else ugly.  And the price is about the same as the Italian blacks which do all of the above.  The white is Effetre because it really is a bit denser than the others and over black I really didn't want any translucency.  The aqua is CiM Pulsar just because I like it.

 Spacers, lots of spacers.  Oh, and another set of eyes.  Trying to get the small ones the same size gave me fits.  To make eye beads, I make a core of black and add large dots of white, melt it in, then add medium dots of blue and melt and small dots of more black and melt again, all the while trying to keep it round.  I finally discovered that if I flatten the bead slightly before adding the first layer of white it's easier to round out in the end.  I only wish I figured this out when I started.

 Halloween is around the corneer and I wanted to do a set in Victorian mourning colors because to me, they are so classic.  Who knew Effetre light grey separates on top of tux?  I used Vetrofond pearl grey for the large beads because that was what I had and was pleased with the match, but under black it goes a bit blue.  It does something weird with CiM Evil Queen, too.  Still, I think these are nice and Halloween-ey.

 And now for something completely different.  We've had nothing but clouds and rain for so long I'm seriously running out of patience.  These were, sadly, taken with artificial light because the watery light we've been having isn't cutting it.  The lime green is CiM Ephalba, the turquoise is CiM Smurfy (never do I buy Effetre turquoise again), the orange is Effetre light pumpkin and the purple is EDP.  It was a lucky break that the darker orange beads came out even but the "striking" of this color is impossible to predict.  I like the Effetre, I really do.  It's a nice orange when it doesn't go brown.  BTW, I tried EDP and pumpkin.  I got fantastic color out of the EDP without any devitrification at all, but the reaction with the orange is horrible.  Don't melt it in.  Trust me on this.

One Thing Leads to Another

I've been oh, so slowly working my way through Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party and at the rate I'm going may finish by Thanksgiving.  For a link to my bead soup reveal click here.

Making jewelry was such a challenge and such a rush, I felt compelled to keep it up and have been working on some new pieces I'd like to share.

 This necklace was created at the request of a friend and will be auctioned to benefit the local humane society.  I used a set of matching lentils and spacers I had and made some more spacers, added a few copper accent beads and joined it all together with a simple leaf clasp.

 This bracelet uses one of my tabular focals and some lampwork spacers in black and silvered ivory that I combined with pewter findings, black glass rounds and a cool pewter snake toggle.  It's a drama piece but I love the way it turned out.  It is currently in my Etsy shop here.

I'm having so much fun I've got more in the works.  I'm trying out another asymmetrical design using beads I made with CiM African Gray and DH Psyche, some iris black pearl coins, gunmetal and miscellaneous bits and bobs I've got.  I'll confess I've got this idea in my mind but am having trouble getting it together.  I need something to lighten up the colors visually, or do I?  More to follow, I'm sure as I work this one out.

CiM Atlantis

 I finally got a chance to replenish some of my glass, and CiM's yummy Atlantis was a new color.  It's a bit of a cross between Mermaid and Ming, and a bit of an opal, though it isn't really evident if it's not layered over anything.  Like all the CiM colors I've tried so far it has been easy to work, without boiling, oozing or being all shocky.

 These odd beads are, from left to right, self spacer, encased with Effetre clear 006, over clear a little too thickly to see how translucent it is, with reduced silver foil badly encased in clear as my tank ran out, and the same bead badly reduced but properly encased.  The glass gets a little lighter on the ends, as visible on the plain bead.  I'm not sure whether working it longer or hotter makes it lighter or darker.  I think the lightening is like the devitrification you see on EDP, but it isn't devitrification because it remains glossy.  Cool fade effect, though.  I would like to blow some shards of this to get a nice thin layer of encasement on clear to get a better translucency.  I acutally like the enencased portions of the bead I reduced with silver foil better, but I'm not sure what kind of bead I'd use it in.  I'll probably like this better for it's clear color.

 CiM Peace separates when applied on top of Atlantis, and Atlantis spreads pretty dramatically on top of Peace.  The separation of the white was still there but not as dramatic when I did this with Effetre white, probably because Peace is very slightly translucent.  On the top row is a bead with a thin shard of silvered ivory melted all the way in but too small to see anything.  The next is Atlantis with EDP dots.  Nice edge and little reaction.  The black spots on the EDP are where I overheated it and burned it.  Not the glass' fault.  On the right is with DH 331 test batch, a sort of Terra light, and I failed to get much color.  Not a surprise considering my skill with striking DH glasses, really.

 I wasn't impressed with what happened when I combined Atlantis with ivory.  On the left I superheated things a bit to get the maximum reaction, and got it.  The effect I got with the barely melted shard of silvered ivory was much more pleasant.

 Opal yellow lightened a lot when I used it with Atlantis, and I like the absence of a reaction.  If I wanted an ivory look I'd use the opal yellow.  Some separation here as well, but tis cool.  I'm digging the bead with CiM Tux and Atlantis.  The blue is still visible but only just on top of the black, which is very neat.

 This one didn't reduce well, or reproduce either for that matter, but it's with DH Triton, on the left unencased and encased on the right.  The reduction effect is actually visible on the bead, but I would have liked more drama.  It is my fault, not the glass.

This one surprised me.  Who knew copper green would do this?  It's like the copper green was trying to sink into the Atlantis but getting stuck on the edges.  And the dark rim in the middle of the copper green waves and dots is just weird.  I wonder if it's some sort of reduction on the copper green and if soaking the bead in lime scale remover would help?  It's as if there's another color running down the middle of each copper green spot.  Not when the Atlantis is on top, though.  That just spreads out all over the place.  I wish I'd studied more in chemistry.  This is so neat and I have no idea why it does what it does.

I love this color.  It's so pretty on its own I may not combine it with anything else but I'm glad I paired it with stuff ahead of time so I don't use up a whole lot on something that's not going to work the way I think it should.  Maybe I should get a little more now.  I tried to order some CiM Appletini and it was already sold out, and this is sure to go that way soon if they don't make more.  I hope they make more of both.

New Jewelry and Hope

 It's been a couple months, but I finally have something to say.  I have made the odd spacer or two, for my own consumption since I don't feel comfortable selling beads that may crack.  I haven't been enjoying lampworking though since my lack of a way of annealing them properly and the loss of some really nice beads has put a damper on my creativity.  I've also been getting used to working with a pair of diddys.  The soda flare never really bothered me but I talked to an eye doctor about torchwork and she scared me into buying a pair.  I don't know whether it's the lack of the cue of the soda flare or being rusty, but suddenly all my beads were coming out lopsided and I was having the devil of a time with all kinds of other basic issues.  I've finally worked out my shaping, heat control and stringer placement issues and produced the necklace, bracelet, and earrings above.

I lost some weight and my wardrobe needed an update, and purple is one of my favorite colors, so I needed some nice jewelry to go with the new duds.  I like the way these colors come together and have always favored many different shapes in one color group.  The set is made up of CiM Thai orchid, Effetre silver plum light and dark and a few violet transparent.  For decoration I mostly used black metallic with some CiM tux, which has a different kind of reaction with the Thai orchid I used it over.  I restocked headpins and finally got some that will work with 3/32" holes.  I didn't have them when I made this pair of earrings, hence the wirewrapping, but will have them when I get back to beadmaking for real next week.

I still have a bit of time for benchwork because I recently had minor surgery and am able to sit and torch but not walk around for extended periods or lift more than 10 lbs.  I'll have to have Joe set up my new annealer when it comes on Thursday.  I'm so amped.  It's brand new, straight from the factory and hasn't been ruined by anyone else first.  It says it can't be used for PMC but I think if I place a ceramic shelf that's all that is usable from my old kiln in it, it will work fine.  ANYONE WHO HAS ANY FEEDBACK ON THIS IDEA, PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT.  After waiting so long for a proper annealer, I don't want to mess it up.  I haven't done PMC yet and can put it off indefinitely if it means I can make beads that won't crack.  I stole this picture of the chilli pepper I'm getting from the Heritage Glass site in my links.  They have some really good prices and ship really fast.  I had thought about the small Paragon due to its firebrick sides and floor, but decided on the extra bead space, since I can't see making only half a dozen beads and quitting for the day.

So, to sum up, I've been pretty busy.  I lost some weight, started taking better care of my eyes, had to relearn how to torch, had surgery and am looking forward to a new annealer and glass.  I even caught up on some of my housework.  Hope can give you so much energy.  Right now I'm hoping I can get a little momentum with the positive changes I've made to tackle some more of the stuff that's holding me back.

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

CiM butter pecan

A while back I reviewed CiM ginger and made a comparison bead with butter pecan, which was pretty identical with the rods I chose. There is quite a bit of variability in both these colors, and the rod color has a lot to do with the color the finished beads turn out. Butter pecan is a good pink to choose for human sculptural forms (think caucasian goddesses and angels) with the warning that it does get pretty drippy. Not quite as soft as ivory but close, and it stays hot for a long time. In the packet of glass I received, there was a lot of variation in rod size, the one I chose to do tests being about 4mm and the largest 7mm.

Plain butter pecan is creamy with an ever so slight streakiness that disappears if the bead is worked at all. With silver foil there is some yellow fuming, but not as much of a surface reaction as I was expecting. I don't really care for the pearly effect reducing the silver and encasing it has here.

What I do dig is the combination of copper leaf and butter pecan. I will be making some sort of beads with this. The iridescent blue of reduced triton looks nice against the neutral background, but I don't really care for the dark chrome of triton without the dots of clear.

Butter pecan is supposed to be a less reactive alternative to ivory and I wanted to do a test bead to see how close they were. I don't think they are very close, but particularly with a test I did on nile green opalino, the test bead may not indicate what really happens when other colors are involved.

I tested butter pecan with tuxedo in the middle and intense black on the right to see which, if either, would web and what would happen. Tuxedo and butter pecan are about the same degree of softness when melted, so each pretty much kept to itself. Intense black stayed crisp on the butter pecan, but webbed the dots of butter pecan on top like crazy.

Plum silver does pretty well on butter pecan, developing a nice lustre and not having too bad an edge reaction. Copper green does form a slight grey line, but not as bad as on some other colors. EDP bleeds like crazy when placed on top of butter pecan, and the way the butter pecan forms a clear dot in the middle is wild.

I'm glad I have this color in my palette and will be buying more when I run out. I am thinking of some seaside themed beads and I think this color will be one of the main ones I will be using.

Effetre nile green opalino

Effetre nile green opalino wasn't available for a while, and having worked the others, I was anxious to give this a whirl. It is a nice, spring green that I think works best by itself. It remains stiff when worked, more toward the transparents than the opaques. I found myself constantly resisting the urge to work lower in the flame or turn up the gas, since this color is ridiculously sensitive to torch chemistry and if the flame is too reducing, the beads will go an ugly, greyish olive with "smoke" spots on them. If they had beed surface flaws, I might have tried etching to remove the discoloration, but the glass was stained all the way through so I threw out a couple beads where I wasn't able to resist temptation.

Plain, these are a nice, jade green that becomes more ethereal when encased in clear. Note the lack of a clear dividing line where one glass starts and the other stops. Following Pat Frantz's advice, all the encased beads were made on a core of clear to prevent cracking, which the opalino colors are supposed to be prone to do when encased.

Application of metal is a way to shift the hue of this green toward yellow or blue. Adding either does affect the surface, which must be taken into account, but the silver definitely shifts the glass strongly toward the yellow end and copper sends it equally decisively toward the blue. Both have tiny bubbles on them, with the copper being more noticeable.

Double Helix aurae doesn't do well on this glass and I doubt I will do this again. It is interesting the way the unencased bead has separation of the aurae.

I wanted to compare the effects of ivory and CiM butter pecan on a real bead and found they were similar. Both separated a bit, with the ivory on the left separating more strongly, and both are about the same shade. I thought the green glass would react with the ivory to produce a grey line, which it didn't, so I will have to compare them again on a color which I know does.

CiM tuxedo reflects quite a bit into the opalio, and the opalino dots on top of it are invisible. I ran out of gas just as I made the middle bead with intense black, but I believe the tiny opalino dots on top of the intense black ones would have been a waste of time. I was pleased that Gelly's sty didn't do anything weird with the opalino, since I may do something in a muted floral with these two.


I would probably buy this glass again. It is a color that does not really appear in the other manufacturer's lines and will make nice beads as long as I don't forget what it can and can't do.

CiM plum

Creation is Messy has one thing right: It's customers like purple. I do. Plum was released quite a while ago but only recently found its way into my stash. For a link to CiM's website and to see what others have done with this amazing color, click here http://www.facebook.com/?sk=messages#!/profile.php?id=100000449052869 It is billed as an opal and acts like one, melting easily but remaining midway between an opaque and a transparent in stiffnes when hot. This makes it very easy to work with, neither dripping all over the worktop or being so stiff that it pulls other colors off when applying decoration.

Plain, it is a nice, translucent orchid purple. Encased in clear, it lightens a little but seems to become even more translucent. The edge between where the encasing stops and the core starts is slightly blurred. With plum encased over a clear core, the translucency is magnified but the color remains darker.

Silver foil just disappears when just melted into this, but when it is reduced and encased in clear it gives that pearly lavender lustre that I like. Copper leaf looks better than I have come to expect and is a combination that I will probably use again. I only tested DH aurae with plum but was very happy with the bead I made, a base bead of plum with dots of aurae encased with bumps of clear.

CiM tuxedo looks good on plum, remaining crisper than I expected. The dots of plum on top of the tuxedo half of this bead did disappear. Psyche didn't reduce well on the next bead, but I am beginning to think I pulled a stringer of dark amethyst or Effetre black (which I didn't think I had) because none of the beads I have made with this stringer have reduced. Plum silver looks better on the middle bead than the picture shows. The metallic effect stays near the edges and the center has a bit of a line down it on the plum silver scrolls, but I would not be afraid to do this again. Copper green looks nice against the soft plum, but unless something very subtle is desired, there's no point in putting the plum on top of the copper green. EDP looks a bit weird, making the plum underneath look redder than it would be. I wonder what Effetre Sedona would look like with the plum? It seems they are almost the same shade.

Definitely worth a second purchase.

CiM Gelly's sty

Another CiM color that almost slipped by me. They have so many, I'd go broke trying to own them all, but I'd love to try. This one is really a unique shade of pink. It is slightly translucent, but this is part of its charm. Effetre rose opalino is similar, but it is a pain to work with and Gelly's sty doesn't need to be struck. I think the best thing about it is that it plays so well with other colors. The material from Creation is Messy says that it goes light under encasement and likes to be worked hot. There are reports that it can be shocky (oh, no) and devitrifies. I was forewarned on the shockiness and as far as the devitrification goes, I'll just have to see.

Plain reveals a pretty, rose petal shade of pink. Encased, it looks pretty much the same to me. Perhaps a tiny bit more translucent. Maybe a good thing. If I want an ethereal pink, this is the color for me.

I didn't even bother testing this one with silver or copper, since I knew it would go all yellow with silver and I have yellow opalino and CiM ghee for that. With copper I just wasn't interested. I suspect the shockiness advised against comes after cooling without kilning so we'll just see how the plain encased bead does before I add copper to the mix. With DH aurae, pictured here, it goes golden and highlights the gold dots of the aurae. Nice. I love what it did under encasement. I only wish my clear didn't scum up.

The translucent quality of Gelly's sty is really highlighted by its use with CiM tuxedo. The tux seems to be slightly absorbed by the pink, but that is light transmission, because the edges of the black on pink are nice and crisp. The pink on black looks slightly lavender. I have to try encasing a tux bead with Gelly's sty now. EDP bled a little but works well on this pink. No burning! I really like that there is no reaction with ivory. I was sure there would be. The dots of pink on top disappear on both the ivory and the white next to it. Gelly's sty is fairly stiff for an opaque, so that explains the ivory and white bleeding.

Yellow seems to bleed a little but there is no ugly reaction. Strangely, copper green appears bleached out. there is nothing ugly happening here and I would feel confident using the 2 together, but I would wish for more contrast. The intense black stays crisp and the Gelly's sty separates into that neat mouth thing, but it is almost invisible due to its lack of saturation. Trying to get plum silver to go metallic without devitrifying was a task beyond me, but there is a hint of a shimmer, trust me.

I will definitely be buying more of this color. It is a pleasure to work with and an unique addition to my palette.