Glittery Goodness - CiM - Creation Is Messy Cleopatra

Just a quick post to share... It has been a very cold February after such a mild start of 2023.

This set of sparkle beads was created on a base of CiM - Creation Is Messy’s Cleopatra Ltd Run, dense and saturated transparent purple.

This is another glass that is so dark, it appears black in most applications as a base glass.

Each bead was generously sprinkled with Double Helix Helios glass frit and reduced to sparkly goodness.

#creationismessy

#cimglass

#cimcleopatra

#nortel

#doublehelixglass

#helios

@creationismessy

@nortel_glassgirl

CiM - Creation Is Messy 2021 Colors - Carnival & Horehound Ltd Runs

 In 2020 CiM - Creation Is Messy began creating a selection of glass rod with complimentary streamers of glass encased in the rod of transparent glass. 

Click here for a glimpse of a favourite from 2020 - Circus Tent Ltd Run.

The designers at CiM continued to develop other streamer rod and 2021 brings lots of options in limited quantities. Over the next few posts I will be showing several of these.
In the bead set below, I paired a streamer glass named Carnival Ltd Run, a light blue transparent base with orange, yellow, green, and white streamers.

The hollow focal bead and small barrel beads were capped on each end with Double Helix Aurae silver glass. Each bead was reduced to bring out the metallic shine.  The spacer beads are pure Carnival glass.

The Carnival glass is elegant in my opinion and would be would be beautiful on a simple silver chain.

CiM introduced a few new browns to their existing color line. 

Horehound Ltd Run is a light transparent brown that really sings with silver glass! This set of beads combined Double Helix Helios streamers reduced to glorious gold metallic shine.

The colors of each glass stayed true with no reaction to the silver and are on my list to order before these limited edition glasses are gone forever.

D.

#creationismessy
#cimglass
#cimtesting
#cimnewcolors
#cimcarnival
#cimhorehound
#cimglass2021
#nortel
#doublehelixglass
@creationismessy
@nortel_mfg

Spring 2019 - New CiM Color - Budgerigar Ltd Run

Today's post highlights one of the many new CiM - Creation Is Messy green colors for Spring 2019.

The beads below were created from CiM's Budgerigar Ltd Run.
Described as a translucent lime green which is bright and cheerful for spring.

It plays nice with silver glass whether it is on the surface or as a base with silver glass frit encased in clear.

The first focal bead was created with a sprinkle of Val Cox new frit, Flora. It was then encased with Double Helix Zephyr clear glass. 
You will see a wrap of 99% fine silver at the centre of the bead that was melted in to create the silver droplets suspending in the glass.

The second focal tested encasing Budgerigar with DH Zephyr and layers of Double Helix silver glasses, Kronos 2 and Helios. 

Unfortunately, I spent too much time playing with the decoration and the glass cooled too much and resulted in a crack. Not the fault of the glass, it was definitely the artist.

Definitely a very pretty color and I am looking forward to further testing this with other silver glasses.

All the new CiM colors are available through www.nortelglass.com. Contact Jean for your glass needs!

D.

#creationismessy #cimnewcolors #cimbudgerigar

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.

Spring 2018 - New CiM- Creation is Messy Colors - Lilac & Banana Cream

Happy Sunday Everyone!


Just a quick post with 2 more new spring colors!


CiM's Lilac is a pale purple/pink opaque glass that melts beautifully and is not reactive to silver. As a result, no fuming or disclosure keeping the clean beautiful color it was intended to be.
Here in this bead set, I simply used 99% fine silver wire to decorate the surface of the focal beads. As you can see as compare to the spacers, the color is beautiful for spring.

CiM's Banana Cream is a light non reactive off white. Some testers have mentioned that as the glass is worked longer, the result has a light yellow effect.

When I paired it with Double Helix silver infused Helios glass in dots, scrolls and lines, the silver glass fumed the Banana Cream a deep golden color. The spacers are quite light in comparison.

The set is beautiful in person, I had it on display yesterday with lots of attention.

It is very eye-catching!

Enjoy your day and stay tuned for more new colors!

D.

Testing a CiM - Creation is Messy Color Rod Sampler# 1 from Nortel

On my visit to Nortel in January, I was lucky to grab up some CiM- Creation is Messy color sampler packs.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be creating and sharing some bead creations. 
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.

First sampler that I tried contained the following colors:
Poolside 511553
Bone 511826
Desert Pink 511957
Rapunzel 511627
Enchanted 511626
Venus 511911

As I love using silver glass in my testing, I created some big hole bead sets using silver glass frit and some handmade shards.

The following sets uses Double Helix Triton fine frit. 
Triton is an extra strength super luster on a cobalt blue base that produces a satin iridescence bling when reduced. Fine graded frit is the size of salt grains and as a result needs to be treated very lightly to keep it from melting completely into the surface of the bead.

With Poolside, the silver glass frit provided a golden sugar effect with no impact on the base glass.

With Rapunzel, the frit held it's blue in the reduction flame and also fumed the base glass to a slight golden tint.

With Enchanted, the golden sugar was more evident but there is a slight blue back tint at the surface of the bead.

With Bone, I created two silver frit beads to demonstrate that when it was quickly reduced, the gold/ blue sugar shine comes forward, but the neutral base was greatly fumed to a golden ivory. Once the frit was melted in to the surface, Triton's true blue returns to the metallic shine's surface.

For Bone, silver glass definitely fumes the surface, so if you are looking for it to stay as a whiter neutral, keep it away from silver glass.

The last 2 CIM Sampler colors were matched with handmade shards created from Double Helix Helios silver glass. This glass is a golden-yellow citrine, jewel tone super luster that gleams of gold shine!

With Desert Pink, there was a definite golden fuming when the Helios silver glass shards were added. The true color of the pink rod is the color in the spacer beads.

With Venus, there was little golden fuming and it retained the peachy pink hues of the base glass.

The photo below shows the beads together to show how the fumed Desert Pink bead looks so lovely coordinates with Venus beads.

I hope you enjoyed looking at these bead sets. I encourage you to contact Jean at Nortel to pick up a sampler pack and try these colors soon!

Til next time,
D.

A step at a time to full studio restocking!

Amethyst and Amber Flowers
Materials: CiM - Creation is Messy, Double Helix and Effetre Glasses

Five Hand-formed Flowers created with CiM Thai Orchid, Effetre Medium Amethyst and Light Amber. Highlights of Double Helix Helios shine in the centre of each flower.

Goddess#153- Nemesis
Greek myth name of the goddess of justice and vengeance, meaning "retribution; righteous anger."

Materials: CiM - Creation is Messy, Double Helix, Effetre and Trautman Art Glasses

This set of 7 beads were created on a base of CiM Hades Ltd Run#2. Portals were added with combinations of Effetre Dark Ivory, Trautman Art's Oxblood and Double Helix Aurae Light captured under a dot of Effetre Clear. Dots of CiM Gunmetal create the highlights on these beads.

Goddess#154-Si-wang-mu

Si-wang-mu, who lived eternally in the Jade Mountains, was a Chinese mother goddess or Mother Queen of the West."

Materials: CiM-Creation Is Messy, Double Helix and Effetre Glasses

This set of 10 beads were created on a base of CiM Elphaba Ltd Run#1. Portals were added with combinations of Effetre Dark Ivory, CiM's Black Currant and Double Helix Olympia Rain captured under a dot of Effetre Clear. Dots of Aurae Light create the highlights on these beads.

Simple Spacers in CiM Seafoam Ltd Run - An opal green resembling beach glass
Materials: CiM - Creation is Messy Glass

Simple Rounds in CiM Desert Pink - An opaque pastel pink.

Materials: CiM - Creation is Messy Glass

Simple Spacers in CiM Atlantis - A bluish teal opal.
Materials: CiM - Creation is Messy Glass

Simple Rounds in CiM Maraschino - A dense transparent bright carnival red.
Materials: CiM - Creation is Messy Glass

Simple Rounds in CiM Poison Apple - A dense and saturated opal green
Materials: CiM - Creation is Messy Glass

Simple Spacers in Tangerine Orange
Materials: Effetre Glass

Orphan Beads and Other Things!

Beads within this post are NOW SOLD

Eris

Goddess Bead Series #119

"Greek myth name of the personification of "strife." She is the sister of Ares. Her Roman name is Discordia."

Materials: CiM - Creation is Messy, Effetre and Double Helix Glasses

This set of 11 goddess series beads was created on a base of CiM's Mulberry glass. Each goddess bead was then layered with dots of Effetre Dark Ivory, White Pastel and DH silver infused glass known as BE462 Purple Super Luster. The combination of the glasses create the multi-hued portals captured under each clear glass dot. Double Helix Helios completes the metallic highlight droplets on each bead.






 
March Goddess Orphans


Materials: Effetre, CiM - Creation is Messy, Double Helix Glasses, Trautman Art Glasses



This 23 orphan bead set is an eclectic assortment of various Goddess Beads beads. The uniqueness of each goddess bead allows the designer to
create a truly one of a kind piece of precious glass jewelry.
Each bead uses an base of Effetre or CiM glass with portals of silver infused glass encased in clear to capture the richness of each silver droplet.



Pretty in Pink Rounds
Materials: Effetre Glass and Glass Diversions Frit

If you love pink, you will love these rounds. On a base of Effetre Rose Quartz transparent, Glass Diversions Pink Ribbon frit, a fine mix of pink opaques was sprinkled and melted into the surface. The result is a lacelike pattern on each bead. So pretty and dainty for spring!

Creamsicle
Materials: CiM - Creation is Messy and Effetre Glasses

Starting with a base of CiM's Creamsicle Unique#2, these focal beads were heavily encased with Extra Clear and dotted with white opaque glass.
This set contains 4 focal beads and 5 matching Creamsicle rounds. So pretty for spring!

Spring Mint
Materials: Effetre Glass

Starting with a base of Effetre Mint Green Opal pastel, these focal beads were heavily
encased with Extra Clear and dotted with white opaque glass. This set contains 4 focal beads and 4 matching mint green rounds.

Marching on in 2012

Beads within this post are NOW SOLD

Venus

Goddess Bead Series #118
"Roman myth name of a goddess of love, meaning love. This is also the name of the second planet in our solar system."

Materials: CiM - Creation is Messy, Effetre and Double Helix Glasses

This set of 11 goddess series beads was created on a base of CiM's Marble Ltd Run opaque glass. Each goddess bead was then layered with dots of Effetre Dark Ivory, White Pastel and DH silver infused glasses, Clio and Kalypso. The combination of the glasses create the multi-hued portals captured under each clear glass dot. Double Helix Helios completes the metallic highlight droplets on each bead.

Classic Dotted Rounds
Materials: CiM - Creation is Messy and Effetre Glasses

This set of 15 beads are Classic Dotted beads! CiM's Cornflower, an opaque cobalt blue, with scattered dots of Effetre opaque white glass.

Spring Crocus Rounds
Materials:  CiM - Creation is Messy Glass

This set of 18 beads are perfect for Spring 2012. The base glass, CiM's Crocus Unique #2 creates striated patterns which are  much lighter and slightly pink than regular purple opal Crocus.



Curry Rounds
Materials:  Effetre Glasses

This set of 16 beads are striking with  striated patterns in spicy shades of curry, tumeric and dark mustard.

March Silvertrails Orphans
Materials: CiM - Creation is Messy, Effetre Glasses and Fine Silver Wire

This abundant set of 46 Silvertrail round beads is a mix of various base glasses wrapped with 99% Fine Silver Wire.