First Beads for Fall

 I made these Saturday, before I officially decided to change my color diet. In fact, these beads helped me to see that it really was time for a change.  Apparently, I'm not the only one because 3 of the 4 sets I made up are on their way to their new homes.

Of the batch, the beads on the left are my favorites.  They were made with CiM lapis with psyche and sis.  I love the way the ivory fades into the lapis.  I don't think I noticed this in my initial testing, but for this set it really works.  Besides, the blue violet is such a lovely color.

 On the right is a set made the same way with CiM olive.  This one reminded me of an aerial view of grass-covered sand and streams.  These are the most fall-like colors so far, but green is a lucky color that works in any season.

I called this set water flowers because of the colors and patterning, primarily.  The lentil is copper green with sis like the spacers, but I added a blend of 456 rubino oro and CiM cranberry pink dark frit.  I love the way the pink frit reacts with the copper green, separating it into a halo and an area that looks almost like it was thinly encased in aqua transparent.  I was also surprised to see that the pink picked up some of the silver from the stringer it contacted and moved it to its far edge.  I don't know who could have predicted that.

I'm not an orange person.  I tend toward cooler colors and shy away from ones that make a bold impression like these beads do.  I have to say I like this one.  I like the way the streaks of blue, purple, yellow and pink show up against the plain coral.  The glass I used is Vetrofond petrified wood and it's not on the diet, but that is primarily because the glass is so pretty on its own that I can't see adding anything else to it.

Naturally, the beads I made yesterday were useless.  I did make one that looks good, and another that was probably the prettiest bead I've ever made.  The good looking one is a base of light pumpkin with silver foil, sis, and psyche, decorated with bordello bumps.  I'm going to play with that combination more.  The really pretty one was too pretty.  I wrapped a core of lapis with trails of psyche and bordello, rolled it in silver foil, melted it in and reduced it, encased it in clear and decorated it with half a triton swirl flower.  Unfortunately it looked so good after I reduced the triton that I didn't want to mess up the reduction by heating it too much and it cracked from thermal shock.  The two halves are still together and it looks like the crack only goes partly through the encasement layer, but I can't use it.  I hope to come up with a solution to this problem.

petrified wood

This is another one of Vetrofond's numerous odd lots, which are difficult to come up with now.  This is a shame, since this one is very pretty.  As far as the plain bead is concerned, Effetre rosewood is very similar.    This one really likes silver, but not so much sliver glass. 

1 is plain and is a nice, streaky terracotta.  With silver foil melted in, nice things happen.  2 is with just the foil and 3 is the same under encasement.  I love the shades of purple, blue and green that sit between the layers.  They almost seem to float on the surface.

With silver glass the prettiness is not as evident.  4 is with DH aurae, I think, and 5 is with triton.  What was I thinking doing these roughly the same size, shape and decoration.  Now I am not sure which is which.  There is a slight brown fuming effect on the petrified wood, and both reduced well, but either could be aurae.  I know 6 is with triton encased because I didn't do one in aurae.  I should be thankful I had that much sense.  The triton went somewhat green but it's not so bad against the orangey petrified wood.

The less said about 7, the better.  The dark streaks going across the petrified wood is TE-331.  It didn't strike.  At all.  I need to play with this color more.  8 is with copper green and there is perhaps the faintest of grey lines between the copper green and the petrified wood.  I wish the copper green could have done its separation thing.  That would have been cool.  9 is petrified wood dots on top of intense black dots on top of a petrified wood base.  The intense black stays crisp and the petrified wood goes translucent.  I have to play with this idea and see what happens.  I also have to go back to testing with CiM tuxedo since intense black is too dominant.  10 is with plum silver scrolls and I'm not sure about this one. 

Ivory bleeds a bit into this coral type color but the effect isn't too pronounced, despite what the fuzzy photo says.  11 is silvered ivory stringer and 12 is petrified wood over ivory over petrified wood.  Again, the dots wash out.  I have to find a terracotta type that holds its own over ivory.  Maybe Effetre zucca scuro.  It sure is vibrant.  I'll give it a try.  One thing to note about the combination is that the petrified wood seems to lose its streakiness under the ivory.  That is not the side effect of my lousy photography.

Would I buy this color again?  I wouldn't go out of my way for it.  It is very, very similar to rosewood, which is still available.  Of course, it was 1/3 the price.  Always a plus.  I guess it would depend upon how much glass I was intending to use.