Silver Glass Reactions

Two quick sets to share today.

Starting on a base of CiM's Mockingbird Ltd Run, a transparent gray on which Double Helix Ekho silver glass frit was sprinkled and reduced.

Mockingbird is a great base for silver glass and assists in coaxing out metallic hues of blue, pink, silver and gold.

The set below uses the storming technique that I mentioned in a post a few days ago, but this time the storms were captured under multiple portals of clear glass around each bead.

The base glass is CiM's Prairie Grass Ltd Run. Each bead uses multiple layers of ivory, CiM Cleopatra Ltd Run, stormed TAG's Golden Emerald and a final clear encasement.
The result creates unique "storms" of green and purple in each portal. 
Dots of Double Helix Aurae glass were added to the shoulders of the beads for metallic highlights.

Single Focal Beads - Window Panes with Silver Reactions

Today, we are exploring "window pane" style focal beads.

Starting on a base of CiM's new limited run, Mockingbird, a transparent grey, Double Helix's Ekho frit was sprinkled, reduced and encased with clear glass.
Dots of Double Helix silver glass were placed at each end to create this "window pane" bead. I love the hues of blue "ghostly" images peeking as if captured within the bead.

Two views of this bead are noted below showing how the bead's appearance shifts based on the viewing angle.

Starting on a base of CiM's new limited run, Barrier Reef, a transparent teal, silver glass was swirled, reduced and encased with clear glass.
Shards of Double Helix Triton glass were placed at each end to create this "window pane" bead. I love the hues of teal and blue peeking through along with the "mother of pearl" reaction of the silver glass that shines through as well.

Two views of this bead are noted below:

This last focal bead I have fondly name "The Tempest". It started out with a base of clear glass on which I added CiM Cleopatra, a dense transparent purple.  I then added Double Helix silver glass from their recent "garage sale" mystery box.
The bead was both reduced and gravity swirled and encased under clear glass to create the wisps of colors. 
A few dots of silver glass were added to the shoulders of the bead and reduced to a metallic shine for this "window pane" bead.

Two views of this bead are noted below:

Silver Glass Storming - Revisiting a Technique

Today's post explores some experiments that I had with storming silver glass.

Storming is based on a tutorial by Amy Kinsch. The principle is to heavily reduce a silver infused glass and by manipulating the torch's mix of propane and oxygen you can create webbing designs when captured under a clear glass encasement.

In this set, I used combinations of TAG's Golden Emerald and Double Helix Psyche glasses.

The base of the beads is a new CiM color named Cleopatra. It is a dense and saturated transparent purple.

As you can see, there are lots of stormed reactions that make each bead unique.

This dense transparent purple base glass is very dark on its own.

For the round bead, second from the left, I used a clear core before adding Cleopatra purple in order to give the bead more definition by diluting purple. It created a great transparency for both the hue and the texture of the twisted storms.

CiM Aloha & Prairie Grass

Just a quick post to share a couple of new CiM Limited Run colors.

First up. 

The focal bead was created on a base of Effetre White opaque with twisted dots of CiM Aloha, a opaque blue, and Prairie Grass, an opaque yellow green.

The spacers are CiM Slate Ltd Run

The set below uses the same combination of glasses with dotted beads and Prairie Glass spacers. 
Both these new CiM colors create dots without bleeding into the white neutral base which is a great way to use these bright cheerful colors in bead sets for spring 2017.

Pink Cream and Maroon

I had posted a few weeks ago that I had gotten 20 pounds of Double Helix silver glass recently. Some of the glass was not labelled and that is always an adventure to experiment and determine what reactions will result in a bead.

I was really happily surprised with this one. The rod resembled a tan brown with a dark centre. Simple beads of the glass were struck and reduced and the reaction captured under a clear glass encasing. The veining is pink with touches of caramel within a cream bead.

Very interesting set with each bead a unique creation.

While we are in the pink/red side of the color spectrum, I have a new red glass from CiM - Creation is Messy to share testing results for - Maroon Ltd Run. This glass is dense, dark and cherry hue rich. 

The main beads show the base glass with metallic armour created with Double Helix Triton shards. The two glasses were meant to be together like a romance with the silver glass producing shades from gold, pink and blue.

The spacers are simply Maroon. A rich deep red.

Simply beautiful!

Pendant Bead Sets - A Couple More

In a blog post last Sunday, I shared some beads made to show techniques and compatibility of CiM - Creation is Messy glass with other brands.

The first photo shows the "plunged dot" technique with Double Helix silver infused glass to show the  mother of pearl results that come from reducing and encasing the glass.

The bead on the right started with a base of CiM Slate Ltd Run encased with Double Helix Terra2. After the multiple dots and encasement, the glasses produced deep blue reactions.

The bead on the left has a base of CiM Tutu Ltd Run with encased Double Helix Terra2 which produced shining mother of pearl pinky goodness.

The spacers are CiM Slate Ltd Run.

CiM Slate makes a great base of glass frit as well. The focal bead below has a sprinkling of Val Cox Starry Night frit that was melted in and swirled. The sparkles come from the blue aventurine in the frit.

The round focal beads below are simply silver glass beads encased in clear glass.

The left focal bead has plunged dot bubbles. 
The right focal bead has a trail of 99% pure fine silver wire added just before the clear encasement. This allows the silver to be captured and melted into micro-droplets and streams under the magnification effect of the clear glass.

The spacers in this photo are CiM Limelight Ltd Run, a pretty light green transparent glass.

African Violet, Blue Arrow Frog, Aloha and Prairie Glass - Lots of Color!

CiM - Creation is Messy's new limited runs were in response to requests for new blues, greens and purples. This post will highlight some of the new colors.

First up is a set of round beads that use CiM's new African Violet Ltd Run. This new purple is very dark and dense as a transparent. These beads started with a core of White Effetre glass that was encased with African Violet. As you can see, despite the white base, this purple is rich and deep.

The dots were created with CiM Aloha Ltd Run, a "rich, bright, dark turquoisey blue". Notice the slight striation in each dot that created a circle within each dot. 

These beads are bright and colorful with a rich blue base glass named Blue Arrow Frog Ltd Run.  I wrapped 99% fine silver wire around the base and quickly encased it in CiM Experimental clear glass. This melted and captured the micro-droplets of silver under the magnified look of the encasement.

Finally a quick test of CiM Aloha Ltd Run and green CiM Prairie Grass Ltd Run over Effetre white opaque glass. The dots stayed true and no adverse reaction where the glasses meet.
These are definitely two colors that I will use in the future for dotted beads!