Torch Session - Revisiting CiM Colors - The Green Palette

CiM - Creation Is Messy’s extensive list of colors to a new beadmaker may seem overwhelming. Beautiful colors with amazingly creative names.

The best resource to seem some time getting to know the color ranges is the CiM website.
Kathy’s organization by hue palette has allowed me to mix and match color families easily.
Over the next few weeks, I will continue to revisit some that deserve a second look.

Today’s post are beads from the CiM Green Palette.

Before I dig into the beads I made with a couple of the existing green colors, I wanted to alert everyone to the new greens that are currently under CiM's Preview.
I am anxiously awaiting my rods for color testing and will post those results in the new year, but take a look at the possibilities!

Click here to see all the new colors for January 2019!

First up, CiM's Oobleck. 
This color is an opaque vibrant acid green that really does remind me of the story books and movies that are so familiar with this name.

I had previously tested this glass with Double Helix silver glass, see that Jan 2018 blog post here.

In this set, I wanted to show it in a simple set with 99% silver wire. Oobleck stayed true with no dark reaction.

CiM's Peacock Green and Rainforest are colors that have been around for a while and I have used them in many sets before.

In this set I wanted to pair them up into one bead to test for any reactions.
Peacock Green is known as a milky green moonstone that allows light to transmit through the glass making the centre of this bead appear to almost glow from within.

The shoulders of the focal bead made from Rainforest  a green teal opal glass that is dense  and deep in it's hue. With 99% silver wire, the bead shines with no adverse reaction.

I have tested both of these glasses in the past and it is beautiful when combined with silver glass.
Here are a few previous blog post links:
Paired with DH Aurae fine frit - glittering goodness!

Dragonscale beads with silver foil and handblended Pendragonfyre frit

Last set for this post was created with a base of CiM's Limelight Ltd Run. 
This glass is a very pale transparent green that was similar to tints available from other manufacturers.
The two central beads were sprinkled with Double Helix Aurae fine glass frit and reduced to a glitter metallic gleam and cast a golden glow to the bead surface.
The spacers show the clean and clear green color of the glass itself.

I have used Limelight in many bead sets and love this glass as a base for multi-layered beads and mixing with various silver infused glasses.
Here are a couple of eye candy to close off this post today. 
Click here for the full blog post.

As we close out 2018, I want to wish everyone holiday greetings and look forward to 2019 and new glass discoveries!

Til next time,
D.

Torch Session - Revisiting CiM Colors - The Blue Palette

CiM - Creation Is Messy’s extensive list of colors to a new beadmaker may seem overwhelming. Beautiful colors with amazingly creative names.

The best resource to seem some time getting to know the color ranges is the CiM website.
Kathy’s organization by hue palette has allowed me to mix and match color families easily.
Over the next few weeks, I will be testing  new colors and revisiting some that deserve a second look.

Today’s post are beads from the Blue Palette

This focal bead was created with one half of the bead with CiM Limelight Ltd Run that was sprinkled with Double Helix fine Aurae glass frit.  Limelight is a great base for silver glass.
The other half of the focal along with the two spacer beads are CiM Blueyah Ltd Run. This transparent blue is showing as sold out on the CiM website, but it may still be available via Nortel glass.

CiM Jet Stream Ltd Run is a stunning rich blue. It is a beautiful base for silver glass as well as silver wire as shown in the simple classic set below.

The 3 central beads in this set was created with CiM Slate Ltd Run sprinkled with Double Helix fine Aurae glass frit and reduced to a golden glitter.

As  shown in the two spacer beads, this transparent slate blue stayed true and did not fume in the presence of the silver glass.

Here in this set, the same CiM Slate Ltd Run was complimented with 99% fine silver wire. 
Simple and elegant!

CiM Birthstone Ltd Run is an aqua blue transparent that is currently showing as sold out at CiM.
Check with Nortel as they may have some stashed away in their archives.
The focal cube bead was dotted with dots of Double Helix Light Aurae silver glass. 

CiM Seamist is a limited run glass that is currently sold out and I am hoarding my supply of it as it was created as a specialty formula of a core of clear, encased in transparent blue, encased in clear. The result creates unique beads with a cloudy look that is very pretty.
In testing the glass with silver, I did discover that 99% fine silver wire created a reaction that was most likely because of the outer layer of clear on the rod.
The reaction lends to an antique look that would also work well for natural nautical looks.

I
CiM Seamist and CiM Jet Stream Ltd Run were paired in the focal bead below.
You will notice that the silver wire was added to the areas that were predominately Jet Stream and the reaction that we saw in the previous set was less noticeable.
The two spacers are made with CiM Seamist.

Til next time, the next post will explore the Green Palette.

D.

Torch Session - Revisiting CiM Colors - The Purple Palette

CiM - Creation Is Messy’s extensive list of colors to a new beadmaker may seem overwhelming. Beautiful colors with amazingly creative names.

Although most beadmakers purchase their glass through their favorite distributors, the best resource to get to know the color ranges is the CiM website.

The site's organization by palette has allowed me to mix and match color families easily.

Over the next few weeks, I will be testing both new colors and revisiting some that deserve a second look.

Today’s post highlights some beads created from the Purple Palette

CiM Plum Unique #3 is creamy pale opal purple that creates unique striations in every bead.

In the set below, there are 2 plain spacers and one round bead with 99% fine silver wire. There is no reaction with the silver and allows the silver to remain bright.

The focal barrel bead has the additional streams of CiM Mulberry Ltd Run an opal purple  that on it's own can be quite dark. Layering it over the lighter opal creates more depth in the bead. The silver wire stayed truly bright. 

The resulting beads almost have an alabaster look to them.

I treasure the rods of these opal purples as it sold out several years ago. If you are looking for these shades, check with Jean in her CiM archive at Nortel.




In the photo below, this is CiM Mulberry Ltd Run, showing the deep and rich dark purple glass.

CiM Rapunzel Ltd Run is an opaque lavender pink that is bright and cheerful. In the set of beads below, the graduated spacers really appear as a light purple with a pink undertone. This color will shift to a more purple hue in sunlight.

An observation to note is when Rapunzel is paired with 99% fine silver wire, the wire takes on a golden tone and lightly fumes the base glass with a golden hue.




CiM Emperor is a golden transparent purple that is described by one beadmaker that in sunlight it "glows this wonderful deep cherry jam pink colour". In the beads below, it was tested with silver wire and the result was beautiful with no brown reactions to dull the color.




CiM Bashful Ltd Run is transparent greyish purple that is more on the grey side than purple. In the beads below, I tested it as a base glass with coarse Double Helix Aurae silver infused glass frit.  When the bead was reduced to bring the metallic shine with the surface, the Bashful glass took on a golden fumed surface which is complimentary to the golden shine of the frit.

Double Helix silver glass - Rhea - A Ruby Gem!

Ruby, ruby ruby.... everyone loves the shade of pinky red for their jewelry designs!

In glass, this color is illusive and expensive to produce. In the past, Rubino Oro or Ruby Gold required gold to be added to the glass to create the ruby tones. Check out this article on the color elements in glass making.

As beadmakers, using the traditional formula restricted us in combining the glass with silver glass as the reactions resulted in muddy browns which basically defeated the purpose of using it in the first place.

For Double Helix, this recent offering called Rhea was a welcome addition to the beadmaker's palette. This glass was developed as a "lead free gold ruby that plays well with silver colors and survives a reduction flame without discoloration".

Jean at Nortel gifted me a couple of rods for testing and I am pleased to share the details of the results.

First up, this big hole bead has ends of Rhea with the centre  created with multiple layers of Psyche and Zephyr. Each layer was reduced and encased to create depth in the dots that almost seem to be floating around the centre of the barrel bead.

A few wraps of 99% fine silver wire finished off the bead ends.

As you can see, the ruby glass stayed true to color with no brown muddy reaction.

Below are a few more beads from the session.

Left Bead: Barrel BHB with a base of Rhea wrapped in silver foil and encased with another layer of Rhea. Melted ends with scroll and heart decorations of reduced Aurae Light.

Middle Bead: Alternate view of the bead described above.

Right Bead: Zephyr base with wrap of silver foil. Encased in Rhea with end cap wraps of 99% fine silver wire.

Based on these results, I suggest everyone try out a rod or two of this ruby color. 

Reach out to Jean at Nortel to order!

Happy Weekend!

D.

Silver Glassy Goodness - Double Helix Combinations

Several weeks ago, I cleared off my torch worktable and spent an afternoon revisiting some Double Helix glasses that I had ignored lately. The bead in this post was one of the results of the "without rules" torching session.

This Big Hole tab shaped bead has twisted combinations of reduced Double Helix Psyche silver infused glass encased with Zephyr clear.  

The shoulders of the bead were created with Clio and streams of 99% pure silver wire wraps completed the bead. 

The silver wire has melted into streamed droplets for a tactile feel.

The result was stunning when it emerged from the kiln the following morning!

In natural light, the bead shows it's true brilliance!

Happy Friday Everyone!

D.

CiM - Creation is Messy - Buttermilk

CiM - Creation is Messy Buttermilk is an creamy opaque ivory that I sometimes struggle to use with anything other than silver glass. Silver glass will tend to fume the base glass and the true color disappears.

This glass is classified as a yellow, but in the rod it is really a neutral ivory.

In the set below, I decided to go the glass frit testing route and paired it with Glass Diversions Himalayan Rose mix. 
This no mess glass frit is a mix of gold, pinks and purples that look great with the CiM Buttermilk base glass.

The base glass stayed true and you can see the comparison in the photo below where the spacer beads are visible.

I picked up this glass at Nortel back during my visit early this year and I look forward to trying it again in a few more sets. Reach out to Jean if you are interested in snatching some up before it is gone.

Catching Up on Posts! and CiM Bing Poppies!

Wow, where did the last month go?
My day-time role gets busy with projects from time to time, but this past year has been unusual. We are coming to the end of a 16 month project and I have to admit that I am really looking forward to an attempt to get back to a normal life routine.

As a result, my time at the torch has been greatly impacted, I have several hundred bead sets all strung and ready to post online, but no time to sit at my laptop after long days behind a work PC. 

Every bead artist knows that the fun time is at the torch trying new techniques, testing new glass color reactions. I am very disciplined when it comes to documenting results, cleaning my beads and photographing the sets. But when it comes to measuring each bead and writing up the descriptions and posting online I set them aside for when I can focus on the "marketing" side of the trade.

Those of you that are following my blog here and my Twitter and Facebook posts have been loyal followers and I thank you for that and I plan the following events for over the summer months getting ready for the fall:
1. The www.pendragonfyre.com website nears an overhaul - maybe even a move to a new provider. This will take much thought and hopefully will provide a better user experience.
2. A decision on where to post new sets for sale - Facebook, E-Bay or Artfire. Please provide me feedback on your preferred channel to buy as the marketplace has changed greatly over the past 2 years.

I posted a few quick photos on Facebook recently and promised to provide details so let's take a look at those beads today.

I had some additional CiM - Creation is Messy Bing red in my stash. This was a color included in the Playground Fun sampler that Nortel is offering. Bing is a very bright red that appears to be sold out on their website, but Nortel may still have some stashed away if you are interested.

I decided to make non-traditional beads for a change and create a set of poppies.
The poppy on the right is a 2 hole button that would look great on a sweater as a focal button. Metallic highlights are Double Helix Helios silver infused glass.

It was my first time trying out the button mandrel and I look forward to trying out making more buttons in future after more practice. In the photo below, the button is at the top.

I was pleased with the clean holes, as those of us that make buttons, this challenge is real!

Til next post, thank you for reading and following my posts. Please comment and let me know that you want to see in the future!

Smiles,
D.

CiM - Creation is Messy - Sea Mist

Wow, where has the time gone this spring!

Although we had the typical spring snow and rain, my time was consumed by a project away from my studio.

As a part-time artist, I usually only get weekends to venture out to heat up the cold studio and get in some "kiln-time". These past 8 months have limited those days to 1 or 2 days each month. 
Between all my color testing and the glass I have stacked for new bead sets, I am looking forward to recapturing some lost time and stretching my creative skills again. 

I picked up some rod of CiM's Sea Mist on my last visit to Nortel and decided to see how it paired with some silver glass for my interchangeable beads. 

This glass is showing as Sold Out on the CiM website, so if you are interested in purchasing some, please reach out to Jean at Nortel soon before her stock is gone forever.

This glass was created in response to requests for a streaky blue. The rod itself is a core of clear glass, encased in transparent blue, encased in clear.

When making spacers, I did get the streaky look with a few bubbles which I thought kept within the sea mist theme. 

I tested it as a base and encasement of silver glass to see if it would fume or react.
I think the result is beautiful!

Here are photos of the two sets that I created:

Smiles,
D.

Playground Fun Sampler - Orange Crush, Poison Apple and Blue Arrow Frog!

I am coming to the end of sharing results of three more glass colors contained in the Playground Fun Sampler pack of CiM - Creation is Messy colors from Nortel. 

These sampler packs are great for artists that:
- want to "try" a new color without the commitment of purchasing a minimum 1/4 pound of a specific color
- want to create multi-colour beads from a coordinated set of colors.

This CiM sample pack contains a spectrum of crayon-like colors:
- Poison Apple
- Limelight
- Frozen
- Bing
- Orange Crush
- Blue Arrow Frog
- Ocher
- Rainforest

I usually don't work with combinations of bright colors within one set, so I set out to create a set that used the same technique and switched in 3 of the main colors of the set.

I created surface "rivets" of Double Helix silver glass with Psyche and Aurae Light.

These beads are on bases of Blue Arrow Frog, Poison Apple and Orange Crush.

Just for fun, I made a few "playground" beads while testing some color mixing.

The tri-colored beads, made from Frozen, Blue Arrow Frog and Bing reminded me of the ice-pops I would buy at the park for my kids. 

The other beads are my "caterpillar critter beads" created by mixing Frozen, Poison Apple and Orange Crush with dots of Blue Arrow Frog. 
Those made me smile.

As always, I encourage you to reach our to Jean at Nortel to pick up a sampler or two.

Smiles,
D.

Playground Fun Sampler - Limelight and Frozen

In this post, I concentrating on testing CiM - Creation is Messy's pale green transparent named Limelight.

Described as "a clean, cool green with no hints of yellow with a tendency to develop micro bubbles". I did see this in the plain spacers, but when I used it to encase, the bubbling was not as noticeable.

It is a beautiful pale tint to encase silver glass reactions. 


In these beads below, I used Limelight as a base and an encasement for Double Helix's Psyche, it's newer Skiron and rare Aurae Light.

First up, the "recipe" was Limelight base, layer of silver glass, encase with more Limelight and scrolls/dots of Aurae Light. 
This green is pure and clean, I really like the result!

Next up, a simpler look of the encased silver glass reaction. The Double Helix Psyche glass was reduced and then encased with Limelight to capture the blues/ pinks and amber hues.

Last but not least, Limelight was tested with Double Helix's newer Skiron which is a silver striking rainbow glass. 
I am always challenged with striking glasses versus those that react with a reduction flame.  I may be due to the fact that I tend to work in a cooler flame, but I thought I would try the same test with Limelight as I did with the results already described above.

So same recipe as the other beads above, but I substituted Skiron for Psyche.
I got more amber than rainbow, so I definitely will need more practice with this new glass.

I paired with bead with Aurae Light spacers and a CiM Frozen bead with dots of Aurae Light. 
Frozen is a opal white that when silver glass is applied turns the surface a pretty golden tint that compliments the silver glass droplets.

Til next post, have a great day!
Smiles,
D.

Playground Fun Sampler - Rainforest & Ocher

This week I am sharing the results of the testing of the glass colors contained in the Playground Fun Sampler pack of CiM - Creation is Messy colors from Nortel. 

These sampler packs are great for artists that:
- want to "try" a new color without the commitment of purchasing a minimum 1/4 pound of a specific color
- want to create multi-colour beads from a coordinated set of colors.

This CiM sample pack contains a spectrum of crayon-like colors:
- Poison Apple
- Limelight
- Frozen
- Bing 
- Orange Crush
- Blue Arrow Frog
- Ocher
- Rainforest

First up for testing, this set of silver wrapped barrels made with a combination of Rainforest and Ocher. 

Rainforest is a greenish teal opal and Ocher is a opaque yellow with a mustard seed undertone.

These two glasses kept their true color with no change in reaction to silver creating a earth based set of beads. Both glasses melt smoothly with no stockiness.

As always, I encourage you to reach our to Jean at Nortel to pick up a sampler or two.

More color results from this sampler coming up in new posts this week!
Stay Tuned.

New Spring 2018 CiM Colors - Camouflage and Amphibian

CiM's Camouflage Ltd Run is an opaque olive green with a hint of gray.

Personally I am not a big fan of gray greens as I struggle to choose coordinating colors to try against is as a base.


In this test, I decided to continue to test these new spring glasses with silver and chose to use silver foil and a glass frit from Val Cox named Victoria in this set of test beads.


Camouflage did well with silver foil and the micro dots of frit scattered around the glass frit patterns.

I am pleased with the results!

CiM's Amphibian Ltd Run is another gray green as part of the new spring 2018 color offerings.


On the CiM - Creation is Messy website, it is described as an opaque pale slate green that I thought would have more striations based on the color page.

I found it to be more green than gray the beads that I created.

I used some handmade Raku shards that I placed in an "armor" pattern and reduced them to a dull bronze like metal.
The base glass may have gotten a bit of fuming from the shards but the green really is predominant in the plain spacer beads as well.

So this brings us to the end of the CiM 2018 new colors. They have arrived at Nortel and Jean is ready to take your requests. Give her a shout and grab up some of these colors soon as they are limited editions.

Smiles,
D.

 

New CiM Color for Spring 2018 - Sacre Bleu Ltd Run

This post is devoted to one of the CiM-Creation is Messy colors for Spring 2018!


It is another beautiful transparent blue aptly named as Sacre Bleu Ltd Run described as a bright luminous blue and it is does not disappoint!


If you like this color, I suggest that you order some quickly before it sells out!


I tested it with lots of 99% fine silver wire and Double Helix silver infused Kronos frit. The encasing to capture the silver glass reactions was done with Double Helix Aether clear glass.

This set of beads are one of kind, each unique in its look and combinations. To see the true hue of the Sacre Bleu Ltd Run, check out the spacers.