Latest Madness

I'm sure many people become obsessed with an idea and have to flog it until it's done.  I'm just going to talk about it a lot.  Enamel.  It's a new world.  I can't wait to get other colors and will soon.  I'll play with it and write about it and I'll wish I'd never heard of it and move on.  Above is a set of purple beads I covered with oxford light enamel.  I can't get enough of the spatterware effect.

Below is a set I made using CiM African Grey and Psyche.  I love the colors it makes!  I wish CiM would do African Grey again just for me!

 I got a hold of some green aventurine frit and naturally the first thing I had to do was mix a bit with blue just because.  I love the streaky underwater kind of thing.  The bottom beads are a base of CiM Stoneground and Roman bronze pixie dust.  They're pretty, but if I wanted that look I'd get copper glass pearls.  Not doing it for me.

Now these are cool.  The same frit blend as the streaky beads above but just melted into copper green.  Does copper green ring and separate on everything.  Pretty sure it does!  I still like these and if they don't sell I'll just make them into beads for me.  Bonus!

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.

I'm on the Page!

For a bit of beady goodness on the blog hop, click here.

One of the things I love to do is try out new colors and techniques.  Creation is Messy has been wonderful enough to keep coming up with new colors to keep glass addicts like myself checking our mail boxes and I hope to be able to say something coherent soon about their newest colors.

For now I'd like to share that they've included some of my blog posts on their product pages.  This is so flattering and I can't believe they're so wonderful.  Here are some of the posts and the links to their website so you can see what other folks are doing with their amazing glass.  One point I'd like to make is that I do not prewarm my rods unless I know they're going to be trouble (the Effetre hand-pulleds spring to mind) and CiM colors seem to be super-annealed or something because they simply do not cause trouble.  Just saying.  Really fun to work with.

If you go to the CiM website and look up African Gray (which is sadly sold out) you'll see my beads here.

This was such a surprise.  I was expecting CiM Canyon de Chelly, which is a truly stupendous color but due to a slight error caused by myself not reading my own labels, I got African grey instead.  I so love what the DH Psyche did, but with no more glass available I'm not pushing it.

I got listed as a tester on this one, which I get a little kick out of because every time I sit down to torch it's a bit of a test.  http://www.creationismessy.com/color.aspx?id=38

I need to take better pictures.  Or something http://www.creationismessy.com/color.aspx?id=22

OK, I'm stuck on watermelons, but Cranberry is really the only glass to use for them.http://www.creationismessy.com/color.aspx?id=25

Hope you enjoy your stroll through glassy goodness.  I bet you have to check it all out.  I always do...

Another Weird Reaction

This is one I did quite by accident.  I thought the rod I picked up was CiM Canyon de Chelly (even though it was clearly labeled CiM African Grey) and proceeded to make a twistie of it and Double Helix Psyche.  I went on to use it on a rectangular tabular bead  with matching plain spacers, only instead of the silvered ivory I usually use I tried Effetre intense black stringer.  For whatever the reason, Psyche just came alive!  In addition to the usual reduction rainbow I usually get, the Psyche fumed the African grey and also the Psyche seemed to have struck!  I've got all kinds of wild  color development.

 The bead looks even cooler than this in real life and I'll be using this myself.  To be honest, the spacers didn't turn out to match.  I think I'll use African Grey as a base color.  I can't wait to try it on my other silver colors to see what it does.  I'll also try it with some more intense black just in case, but I really think it's the base glass and not the decoration on this one.

 Unless it's something strange with my torch chemistry lately.  I've noticed some more reduction than I usually get and have been wondering if it's time for a new orifice.  I could be working lower or hotter than usual too.  The speed my poor old hothead achieves is not what I would call breathtaking.  I'm trying out different places in the flame to try to get the d4mn glass to melt and I don't know if this neat effect is a result.  Probably not, but more tests are in order for sure.

Miscellaneous Work

Time for the awful truth:  My kiln is dead.  I put this bead in it and left it alone, figuring it would do its thing.  What it did was allow the bead to soak for an undetermined amount of time then essentially air cool, without even a fiber blanket to keep it warm.  Its performance has been so so for a while, I think, but this time I caught it.  I'm holding the bead together here.  It was merely cracked, but fell apart in my pocket, cutting my hand as I tried to retrieve it.  I am particularly angry with this bead, since it really was pretty before it cracked and then it went and bit me.

It was supposed to be the focal to go with some of these beads, all made with Effetre Caribbean blue.  The focal shown didn't come out as I hoped because I smeared the yellow badly while encasing and it went particularly ugly with the dark line reaction with the light sky blue of the Caribbean.

This happened a while ago.  It's just taken me a while to feel objective enough to write it down.  I've been making spacers and stuff I can do in annealing bubble, but it isn't the same and I've been doing other mediums, such as polymer clay and wire.  Above is a copper chainmaille bracelet I'm chewing up and the framework for my first effort at Viking knit.  I have to get a chunk of wood and drill some holes to draw it through.

This is the finished polymer clay tree.  I quit when I realized I would never be able to sand it past those gouges left by trying to press it out with my fingers without ruining the tree entirely.  I now own a nylon rolling pin (meant for fondant) and some toungue depressors.I'm at a bit of a loss to explain those white marks in the color.  Any answers, polymer clay folks?

I did pick up some new glass, hoping to lift my spirits while I'm whiling away the time waiting to save up for a new kiln.  The left 3 beads are DH Clio, looking as unlike any Clio beads I've seen as they could.  I don't know whether I messed up the strike or whether they would have finished striking during annealing (sniff) but the darkest I got was a root beer kind of color.  It could be the reducing HotHead, too, because even the plain bead on the left got reduced, and I wasn't even trying to.  2nd in from the left is Clio over clear and 2nd from the right is Clio reduced and encased with clear.  On the right is CiM African grey, which looks a lot like hippo.  I have to dig out my hippo beads and make a comparison.  I'll be honest, I'm really not as excited as I should be about getting the first new glass I've had in almost 6 months.  I'm over halfway there.  Another couple months and I'll be either crazy or back in business.