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.

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.

the pause between breaths

I didn't do any beads today, as the favorite show was on, so here are some beads I made after Frantz Art Glass' DH sale. From left to right: Aion2 plain and encased, CE-352 (to be caliope) plain and encased, aurae plain and encased, triton plain and encased, and psyche plain and encased. All the plain beads were struck, or a reasonable approximation therof, and reduced, and all the plain beads except aion2 are a core of clear with the silver color on top, which shows very well on the psyche bead since, did I mention, I sock at encasing? The psyche is so dark it's hard to tell if it strikes or not. I hope to get some new lighting for photography soon since the lighting I am using really doesn't do justice to the colors. As far as the psyche bead goes, I think I like it much better unencased. I am starting to run low on the gas cylinder, and this makes a difference with how the glass behaves. I have trouble getting a really hot flame and striking even triton can be difficult if the gas is running out. I'm getting some of the TE-362(?) prototype soon, supposedly a duplicate of Terra2, and this post or another like it will appear when it does, as well as testing on various colors with the silver glasses. One reaction I'm very fond of is with Effetre mosaic blue and triton. As self stringers, mosaic blue is virtually identical to trans cobalt, in fact the only way I could tell them apart was to make them in different shapes. With triton, at least, encased, the mosaic blue fumed a delicious green and the bead is noticeably better.

The mosaic blue bead is second from the top and the plain cobalt one is on the bottom. I'm saving the mosaic blue for silver glass since at about 1 2/3 times the price it's just not worth using plain. Granted, it's nothing like silver glass, but still. The cobalt hasn't reacted to anything but peacock green and I do intend to test mosaic blue with other colors but until I test out the budget conscious used kiln I got I am not planning on using peacock green again.
The kiln I got is an early paragon with a wonky pyrometer that has trouble registering "low temperatures." I am not sure what that means so I've ordered some pyrometric cones to see if I can trust it at all. If I can't hold glass at a reliable temperature this isn't going to work. I'm good at math so I'll try to figure out the temperature per hour charts in the manual that came with the kiln. I have no problem whatsoever crafting jewelry for my own consumption that hasn't been properly annealed, but I am not going to try to sell it, which is the eventual goal.

Dark matter and the universe

Dark matter is a good name for this new glass from Effetre. It doesn't do all that much sitting there on its own, but combine it with other stuff and you're going to get a reaction. The self spacer, 1 below, is a good example. The lower picture gives a better idea of how it actually looks, with the top picture more acurately reflecting the rod. It's when you start to play with it that you get a better idea of what it is. Bead 2 is reduced, with a neat sheen and purplish area that do not show up well in the photo. 3 is with silver foil melted in, and the greenish patina looks really interesting, especially if paired with other colors, sis, for instance, that I haven't had time to try yet. 4 is silver foil melted in and encased in clear, and I'll be honest, it looks better without the encasement. 5 is with DH psyche scrolls, struck and reduced. Not much happening but I wasn't expecting much. I'm still learning to get the most out of psyche and it seems tricky to work. Interesting green fuming effect on the dark matter, though. This is more evident in 6, which is struck, reduced and encased with clear. 7 is with alternating bands of triton and aion2, struck, reduced, and encased in clear. It's a pretty bead, but the main thing that strikes me is the difference between it and 8, which is dark matter with triton scrolls, struck and reduced and left on its own. 10 is dark matter with CiM gunmetal unique stringer. There is a gunmetal-like reaction on bead 5 that didn't show up on film, which can be seen as the greyer area underneath the psyche. It seems to be a function of the silver glass, since it didn't show up on the gunmetal bead, but my attempts to duplicate it without the silver glass and just by working it high in the flame were unsuccessful. As I said in the beginning, I like this glass more for what it does than what it looks like. The encased psyche in particular looks better than anywhere else.

plum silver

One of the half-dozen or so favorite colors I have is Effetre plum silver dark. Some of it is still hand pulled. It's a lovely dark, rich purple. It does neat things. The beads aren't labeled but the plum is easy to pick out. They are the dark ones with the sheen, true in various degrees, but once I made my third bead it was easy to see how to get that pearlescent look. It doesn't really react with silver glass, note the unencased trailed bead on the mandrel, but silver glass reacts with it under encasement to produce blues and greens. The top bead on the mandrel is with triton and the cylindrical one below it is aion2, and I have to say, I like the way the aion2 reacted better. I got some more silver glass today so I'm sure further beads will be forthcoming. I trailed some copper green scrollike things on the bead below the cylinder on the mandrel, but I was running out of gas and the green didn't get a chance to melt in. That is another combo I'm going to have to try. The other colors on this bracelet are (I think) 274 dark violet and 271 plum silver light, which is darker than the dark violet so I'm not sure on the lighter color. It might be 272 violet. These colors were all obtained before I went crazy so the rods aren't labeled the way I'm obsessively labeling them now. I've noticed that the plum silver light doesn't do the pearlescent thing to the extent the dark does, but there is a neat interaction between it and the intense black stringer I was using.

New colors

Santa came again and dropped of a whole bunch of glass and a lens press. I am now learning to use all of these and the results are variable. I got some wierd color combinations and some lima bean looking beads but I think I am on the right track now. For now.

1. CiM pheonix, as unstruck as I could make it. I did make this on the same mandrel as bead 2 and flashed it in the flame a few times, but I wouldn't have thought it would have struck to the extent it did. Only around the holes is it a peach color.
2. plain and struck
3. being taken over by SiS. I knew I would like this combination. Next lesson: learning stringer control.
4. with DH aion2, encased in (I think) CiM clear. I was hoping for that orange and purple thing, which I will probably never be able to duplicate with a more readily available color. I got grey.
5. with DH triton, encased and mashed with more success than I thought. A little overfill on the press but I think I got the general shape the bead has to go in right. Now I have to figure out how to encase so I don't get all that clear on the thin edges.

With any luck at editing this blog, what follows are some beads I made with Effetre kelp, 080(I think). I wanted to try it primarily as an encasement color for silver and silver glasses but this has suggested all sorts of other lines of experimentation so this may or may not have been a good idea. The beads are as follows:
1. plain
2. with silver leaf, melted in
3. with silver glass, triton, I think, encased in clear
4. over CiM tux, melted in, reduced, and encased in kelp. I like this bead.
5. tux with triton, reduced and encased in kelp
6. tux with silver leaf, encased in kelp. The kelp went semitranslucent on this. Not my favorite bead.
7. tux with silver leaf, encased in a thinner layer of kelp and mashed. A bit better. Note the brown reaction.

I made a few crocus unique beads, I forget which unique, I'll look it up, and decided I had to try it against the original crocus, which I think I like better. Or I like the beads better, at any rate. The original has very few, if any color reactions that I've found yet, although it was hard to reduce old faithful triton. Here are the beads.
1. plain
2. with silver foil, melted in
3. encased in clear. Fritpedia suggested encasing it in Reichenbach clear, which I do not have, so I tried CiM clear. It's not doing anything for me. I'll have to try it with the Reichenbach, if I get some.
4. With DH triton. Note the lack of silver color on the triton. Ignore the misshaped lentil.
5. with triton, reduced and encased. This turned out a bit better.
6. with silver plum dark scrolls, finished high in the flame. OK.
7. with copper green. No reaction. What? a color that doesn't react to copper green?

Here is another color I had to try, seeing that spring is almost here (what a laugh) and I need a pick-me-up. These were made with Vetrofond banana cream odd lot.
1. plain and unadorned. What a nice sunny color.
2. encased in CiM clear.
3. with DH triton stringer reduced and encased in clear. I didn't think I would like this, since thinking of this and silver glass did nothing for me. I am glad I tried it, because it's my second favorite of the bunch. As far as color combinations go, regarding technique, did I mention I sock at encasing?
4. with sis. What was I thinking? I'd blame the drink but I was sober. I am noticing that encasement and color reactions lighten this glass. Interesting thing to know.
5. with plum silver dark, finished high in the flame. Nice contrast, but I don't know if I would want a set of these.
6. with effetre turquoise 236. Less of a grey line than I was expecting. I like this combination.
7. with copper green. Again, not a whole lot of reacting going on. Pretty combo.
8. with EDP. My favorite combo. I didn't think I would like it, again, but I'm thinking pansies.

playing with colors

Having had enough of unpredictable results, I did a CiM poison apple, or at least I thought it was since it was really Effetre cool kiwi and Effetre dark matter bead, each with DH aion2 decoration and encased, the apple with vetro crystal pale green and the dark matter with clear. I don't like the large layer of clear on the sides of the dark matter bead. I should have encased a lot thinner, but at this point, coverage is more what I'm after. The finesse will come with time and practice. The lower shot is 2 beads with Effetre gaillo ocra, the left with plum silver scrolls and the right with reduced and encased aion2 and the middle bead is closer to what I thought I'd get with the lower blooper photo, Effetre silver colors 1, 2 and 3, 1 layered over 2 next to 3. I don't remember if I encased it. Probably not.


Here's a gratuitous shot of Vetro candy apple with DH triton because I like it.


I don't know which photo I like better, so I'll do both. The sorta cylindrical bead is silver color 3, and the roundish one is dirty martini. I didn't think these colors came up very different for me and they don't. Hopefully Effetre will release these colors individually so I can get more to try out, but until then, I doubt I will be doing much more experimentation. Incidentally, silver color 2 is shocky and 1 tends to boil.

Not everything turns out like I want it to. At this stage of my expertise, not much does. Here is a prime example. I saw a cool bead on the Frantz Art Glass blog for the silver challenge winners. I wanted to do something similar and while I knew I wouldn't get the same bead and didn't have the fuel to do it the same way, I didn't know how far I was going to be off. The other is an ugly attempt to get an encased bead to turn out the way I wanted, vs. the way the glass was going to react. EDP and Aion2: not a pretty combo no matter how I encase it. What a waste of glass, fuel, and time.

I wantd to see what difference there was between Effetre 076 trans red and Vetro 951 (I think) candy apple. As this picture shows, not much. The 076 rod is thicker than the Vetro one, so I had an easier time building up this large holed bead, but otherwise both act the same if I don't burn the glass. I'll be honest--I was trying not to. SIS for decoration but essentially the same bead.

internet problems

This is what happens when the internet goes down. The problem was with the telephone service box connected to the cable modem. It went down and took everything else with it. I did make some beads and play with the camera but I was not a happy camper. On the left is a comparison of CiM dirty martini with copper green. I like the copper green better but it is seriously more expensive than the dirty martini so I'll probably use the dirty martini more. I've also been having a lot of fun seeing what the silver glasses do with the silver-rich colors from Effetre. I've noticed that the DH colors do pretty much the same thing on most colors--the zucca chiaro being the exception. I have also noticed that to get the neat effects from Aion2 I have to encase it, which is resulting in a shortage of clear. Next time I get it it's a pound or nothing. The zucca chiaro and aion2 combo, encased with effetre super clear, was a total surprise. I wouldn't have thought purple on light orangey tan was a good thing but it is turning into one of my favorite beads since it did something I couldn't have predicted. Most of the encased beads and special effects stuff has big holes so I can mount them if I ever get those openers made.




This is what happens when you play around too much with the editing software. The picture on the left is the original. In the middle is the one with just white balance thrown in, which is all I'm finding usually needs to be done, and the one on the right is also equalized. Notice the surreal color effect. The colors involved are the Effetre beyond beauty and silver challenge assortments and a few CIM colors I had to have. I'm keeping glass orders to a minimum right now since if I want a kiln I'm going to have to save up for it.

beads, beads, beads, and some rambling

My latest kick--making big hole beads to mount on bottle openers to sell at an event in March. OK, I haven't booked the merchant space yet, although I did request time off from the day job. Of course, I haven't got Joe to make the bottle openers to mount these on, or even seen if my design for the openers will work. I'd say some extensive field testing is in order. After that the rest will fall into line. Build it and they will come....The light bulb bead is one that I saw online on dragonjools blog and just had to make one of my own. It's not a big hole bead, but it will work as a pin for work.

Some awesome (and some awful) beads have arisen out of this. I won't say I'm borrowing others' ideas. I'm being inspired by them. I have learned a few key lessons. CIM peacock green is prone to crack down the middle, especially if mixed with another glass and pressed too thin. On a related note, Krazy Glue may hold a cracked bead together to photograph, but it won't hold it together to use. I need a good press, preferably a TP masher with interchangeable graphite discs. While I'm at it, how about a Red Rider BB gun. OK, skip the gun, just the press, please, Santa? How about more toys?...I mean tools? I don't know, since I saw a guy in a tutorial making a really decent bead with nothing to shape it with but a kitchen knife.

Another lesson I've learned is that I suck at making pulled cane. Twisties and stringer I'm OK with, but rose cane and complex stringer I'm pathetic at. I look at the ribbon cane and rose beads that otyhers are making and I eat my heart out. Yeah, they've been doing it for years and I've been doing it since October, but really, four months. I should be an expert by now. I'm not a girlie girl anyway and the hearts and flowers have never been a part of my life that I can recall, oh OK there was the '80s, but aside from that, the beads are pretty. Maybe making a butch rose bead, like with guy colors, like black and white and metallics and stuff. Better file this idea. It may seem like a good one in a few months, or it may not.

Something else that seemed like a good idea at the time was silver glass. I just have to face the conclusion that while I can get the DH Triton to go neat colors and metallic, that is the best I'll be able to do with the HH torch. Aion2 just went amber opalescent. Not a hint of blue, green or pink, but I did manage a thin greasy grey line on the yellow bead on the right in the left picture. It looks like a glob of snot from a bad sinus infection.