Reactions from Mystery Silver Infused Glasses - Ghostly Wisps of Color for Today!

I honestly can say I have no idea what this silver glass in this bead set is. It was part of the recent 20 pounds of Double Helix silver infused glass I received and it was paired with plain ordinary Effetre clear, but the results are interesting. It was fun to play without any expectations for once.

There is blue, green, yellow striations captured. The base seems to be a dark red amber.
Some reactions have a mother of pearl sheen while others are simply ghostly wisps of color.

Pendant Beads - Technique Explorations

While completing some testing of new CiM - Creation is Messy glasses, I decided to try out various techniques in order to check the test glasses compatibility with other COE 104 glass brands.
As a lampworker, it is important to "respect the COE" to ensure that all glasses within a bead work together properly. The risk of not following the guidelines results in a cracked bead and lost of the time spent on making the bead in the first place.

For those that are not in the loop on the concept of COE, here is a link that outlines the scientific principle of Coefficient of Expansion.

First up, CiM Yellow Brick Road Ltd Run. It is an opaque yellow on which I sprinkled some Glass Diversions Persian Paisley frit and created the twists in the melted in frit. 
The spacers are another new CiM glass called Painted Hills Ltd Run.

Same technique in the bead below, in a round bead.  Notice in the Painted Hills Ltd Run spacer to the far right, it has a slight color change to a peachy pink in the yellow glass where it was heated a bit warmer while shaping the bead.

 

Same base glass and same frit again, now encased in Effetre clear glass and dotted with Double Helix Aurae silver glass.

Same spacers in the set below. The centre bead is a core of clear glass, encased in a Double Helix silver infused glass and a third layer of clear glass was added. 

The technique used here is reduction and encasement. By change the mix of propane and oxygen brings the silver glass to a shine and captures the reaction under a clear glass encasement. The striations of yellows and blues is unique in each bead.

The last bead in this post used the same glasses as the set above. Starting on a clear glass base, the silver glass was added. Once it was melted in, I used a tungston pick to make indentations in the bead and covered each "dent" with clear glass. This creates a bubbles of air in the bead known the "plunged dot" technique.

I wrapped the bead shoulders in Double Helix Aurae silver infused glass and reduced the melted glass to a pinky shine.

Til next time, 

D.

Marine tints and Turquoise - Sea Themed Beads

CiM - Creation is Messy is introducing lots of Limited Run glass shades over the past year.
The latest release of new colors include some turquoise and sea colored shades.

Let's take a look.

The set below combines two new glasses with the sea-wave twist of silvered ivory stringer.
The translucent glass named Spearmint Ltd Run is coded as a green that reminds me of another past CiM Ltd Run named Seafoam. 

When I received it and held it against the new turquoise glass named Quetzal Ltd Run, I knew I needed to try them together. I like the result and these would be great paired with silver beads in any jewelry design. Each flat tab bead is hand-formed as I don't use bead presses for this style of bead.





CiM - Creation is Messy's Celeste Ltd Run is a pale blue with a tint of green. Other's have compared it to Pale Aquamarine. In the set below it was used as an encasement over a white core. 
Sprinkled on the surface is Val Cox's Starry Night frit that contains dark navy blue and blue aventurine sparkles.

Celebrating the Always Expanding Palette of Blue Glass!

Blues in Glass never go out of fashion. The number of blues available to glass bead makers is endless in combinations. This post celebrates some new glasses from CiM - Creation is Messy. I never get tired of testing new shades. Enjoy this mid week post celebrating blue!


Starting on a base of Effetre White, an encasement of CiM - Creation Messy Splash Ltd Run was melted in. Splash is a beautiful transparent blue that is medium in tone that is not too dark.

A sprinkling of hand blended Pendragonfyre frit was added and melted into the surface to create a floral vines. This frit includes the rare purple rose glass that blooms into purples and pinks.

Continuing on our blue theme for this post, I experimented with CiM's Splash again with another frit mix from Glass Diversions, Glimmer Canyon.  

This is a blend of opaques and transparent blues with sparkling aventurine. A quick twist with a clear thin stringer was all it needed to swirl the colors.

The final set for this post combines two new CiM - Creation is Messy Ltd Run glasses.
One half of each hand-formed flat tab bead consists of CiM's Aloha Ltd Run blue opaque. 

A stripe of light silvered ivory separates the opaque blue with the transparent glass, CiM's Slate Ltd Run. Slate is a pale grey blue that reminds me of a stormy sea. The twists in the silvered ivory create the waves to complete the effect. The set is complete with spacers of each solid glass.

A Study in Harvest Hues - Soft Yellows and Peach

This post comes as the autumn wind swirls around us changing our lawns from greens of summer to yellows, oranges and reds of the season.
Today, I have 3 sets of beads to share and news of new yellow glasses from CiM - Creation is Messy.

CiM Painted Hills Ltd Run - an opaque soft yellow that gives a bloom of other shades depending on how you cool and heat the glass while working it.
It is similar to opal yellow so I decided to see how it would mix with fine silver wire.
As you can see from the photo below, it turned the silver wire to a warm golden glow with unique striated effects in each bead.

The other new yellow glass from CiM that I played with last week was Yellow Brick Road Ltd Run. It is another opaque yellow deeper in tone and casts caramel tones as it is heated.
I sprinkled some Glass Diversions Persian Paisley frit and created the twists in the melted in frit.

The last set for this post is a older limited run CiM - Creation is Messy glass named Nectar.
It is a peachy transparent which is unique to the color palette and I sprinkled in a Glass Diversions frit named Firecracker. This blend is a mix of cherry cold red, indigo, pinks with iris orange raku.