Revisiting Silvered Ivory for a Spring Session to Relax and Restore!

As we hopefully anticipate spring in here New Brunswick, I spent a session at the torch revisiting a bead technique that I return to when I need to clear my head and relax and restore!

I pull out a few favourite CiM - Creation Is Messy glasses from my "favourites" shelf and pair it with one of my favorite organic “glass tools” and I like to create hand pulled silvered Ivory.
Silvered Ivory is either dark or light ivory glass rolled in pure silver leaf and pulled into tiny “stringers” of glass for embellishing beads.

Silvered Ivory stringer, or SIS, gives beads a gorgeous organic look to them. I have a preference of using silver foil and Effetre Light Ivory when creating stringers as I seem to be able to better control the dispersion of tiny speckles of silver with this combination.
Ivory glass on it’s own “webs” or “curdles” giving it a beautiful organic look. When you add silver not only does it react with the Ivory glass, but it sometimes reacts with the beads base as well!

I am always excited to sit down at my lampwork table and create because I tend to learn new things every time. I use this blog as my journal of my sessions and often look back at favourite combinations to plan new bead sets. Note: all glass is different. Each color has its own chemical make-up that may cause it to react differently with different glasses.

Within this post I have used this wonderful type of stringer with some of my stash colors of CiM - Creation Is Messy.
On a cores I have used dots and stream of silvered ivory stringer on both round and zulu shaped beads.

So pretty for summer jewelry designs. 

Let's see this week's sets!

First up, this set of round beads was created on a base of CiM's Lady of the Lake. 

 

This glass is a pale green milky opal that stays translucent after annealing- same hue as Sea Glass.

 

I wrapped a stream of silvered ivory around the centre of each bead on which 2 wraps of fine silver wire was added. 

The spacers of pure Lady of the Lake complete the set. 

 

 

This glass should be available for purchase through CiM Resellers.

CiM Mulberry Limited Run with SIS dots. 

 

 

Notice the micro-dots of silver in each of the ivory dots.. So pretty. 

 

 

The spacers are pure Mulberry.

I have noticed that when I use silver or silver glass with Mulberry, it will darken to a very dark purple which from some angles look like black so I assume it absorbs some metal through fuming.

 

CiM Thistledown Limited Run with SIS dots. 

 

This glass is a unique run of CiM's Plum opal which I tried many years ago as a limited run glass. 

 

 

It also will fume silver to it's base glass if silver glass is worked through several warming and cooling cycles. 

 

Within this set of beads, I kept the glass at an even temperature as I wanted it to capture the SIS dots along with the striations that this glass creates naturally as the bead is formed.

 

The spacers are pure Thistledown.

CiM Sea Mist glass was created as a limited run glass with a core of clear, encased in transparent blue, encased in clear. 

 

For this bead set I paired it with SIS streams and twists and shaped the beads in the Zulu press to create this unique shape. 

 

 

 

This glass also likes silvered ivory stringer. 

 

 

The round spacers are pure Sea Mist.

 

Each of the last 3 glasses within this post appear to be Sold Out on the CiM website archive. I primarily purchase my CiM glasses from Jennifer and Jean at Nortel in Toronto so I am not sure if they have any in their back stock.

You are welcome to reach out to them to check or they may have suggestions of similar offerings for your needs.

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#cimglass
#silveredivorystringer
#cimseamist
#cimmulberry
#cimthistledown

#cimladyofthelake
#nortel
#pendragonfyre
#handmade
#handmadeincanada
@creationismessy
@nortel_glassgirl

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.