I had a few hours last week to play with some of the darker new glass colors by CiM - Creation is Messy.
In some of the colors, I found that they are so dense in color saturation, that using them as bead bases tend to make the bead sets too dark and hard to photograph.
So it was time to experiment to see what would happen if these dark colors were mixed with the neutral silver infused glass. Below are some of the results:
In this first set, I mixed CiM's Barrier Reef Ltd Run with Double Helix Olympia Rain silver glass.
Barrier Reef is a very dark transparent teal which resulted in stormed portals of dark greens and blues mixed with ivory and yellow storm streaks.
It was a challenge to capture the storms with the camera, so I have posted two photos to show in the variety of lighting.
The base of the beads is CiM Musk Ltd Run, a brownish green transparent with the storms captured under clear encasements and highlighted with dots of Double Helix Aurae and rare OK380 silver glass.
In this next set, I mixed CiM's African Violet Ltd Run with Double Helix Olympia Rain silver glass. African Violet is a dense and saturated transparent indigo that is so dark unless it is diluted. Mixing it in the storm technique, some amazing reactions appeared bringing out blues, purples, and golds in the portals magnified under the clear glass bumps.
The base of these beads is CiM's Ceylon Ltd Run, a transparent brown glass with Effetre Light Ivory base dots under the stormed portals finished off with highlighted with dots of rare OK380 silver glass.
The final set for this post is another experiment with CiM's Barrier Reef Ltd Run with Double Helix Olympia Rain silver glass. This stormed stringer created additional bubbling in the storming process and I did not use a light ivory base for each drop.
The greens really came out in the portals with lots of bubbling.
The base of these beads is CiM's now sold out Blue-yah Ltd Run, a transparent blue with silver glass highlights to complete each bead.
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:
