Kiss me with silver coz I feel blue

One of my favorite things to do is to kiss silver to glass and make shards. I have had a crush on Grumpy Bear silver infused shards for quite a while, with their little droplets of shiny beaded silver but I also love Chalcedony shards made this way for their veil like transparency and webbed organic silver reaction. It occurs to me that it would be fun to put some other CiM blues through their paces and so...let the messy testing begin!

This is the paddle pic for Chalcedony from CiM



My scrummy pic of silver kissed Chalecedony shards, although taken indoors; it shows the soft translucency and organic pattering given to the glass by the fine silver infusion.



Here are my Chalcedony shard test beads. The subtle veiled effect is preserved after application and there is very little further organic reactions created by further heating of the silvered Chalcedony shards.



This is the paddle pic for Grumpy Bear from CiM



This pic of silver kissed Grumpybear shards has been taken under artificial light giving a slightly turquoise hue to this glasswork which is not true to life.



My Grumpybear test beads are by far my favorite of the silvered shard test beads, with a secondary organic effect of brown striations appearing during the application process.



This is the paddle pic for Smurfy from CiM



Here is a snap of my Smurfy shards - twinkling with droplets of silver. There is less reaction between the silver infusion and turquoise base than I would have anticipated and have found when creating silvered turquoise shards from various shade of Effetre glass. I think these shards are simply beautiful.



And here are my Smurfy test beads. As you can see, the silver remains in droplets on the surface of the applied shards, with a very small amount of secondary reactions during the application process. On one of my there is a small amount of a terracotta reduction colour where I have placed the shard to the bead surface in a slight reduction flame.



This is the paddle pic for Cornflower from CiM



These shards have had a double layer of silver and have been blown thicker than the other test shards that I have made. You can see the intense reaction from the Cornflower with the heavy silver infusion in lush green/grey organic patterns and striations. It a wonderful quirk of the making by hand process that I stumbled across this beautiful reaction and for future batches I would be tempted to use fine silver foil as opposed to fine silver leaf.



The deep and intense looking Cornflower blue works so well as shards. The initial organic reaction created in the blowing process is preserved on the shard surface during the application process. All in all these are very pleasing shards to work with.



Some notes on my test bead base colours:

CiM Clear: Much better than Vetro clear and Effetre 004, with respect to scumming and bubbles, not as good as the latest batches of Effetre 006. To be fair this is the first rod of CiM Clear I have ever used and the rd did have some surface scratches which will have added to the degree of scumming I experienced.

Reichenbach Antique Clear: This glass is a personal favorite of mine and my current "go to" for encasing, scum free, smooth to melt, relatively stiff. A very light green transparent which gives depth and a slightly victoriana look to my beads.

CiM Sapphire: Scums/boils easily in a hotish flame, though worked cool it behaves much better. Personally I like a few tiny bubbles in my beads to add interest and sparkle so working with this exceptionally beautiful shade of blue transparent holds no worries for me. Not a colour I would use for making ribbon twistie as stretched out tiny bubbles can make twistie very shocky.

CiM Cirrus: Interestingly this colour creates a beautiful green hue to my flame. An added element of nice when working with this glass. I found it a tiny bit shocky but once the end f the rod was hot, melted smoothly. As with CiM clear, it is the first time I have used this glass and so have much to learn about its striking properties.

CiM Split Pea: I love the deep striations that naturally occur when working with this relatively new addition to the CiM colour pallet. A softish glass, well behaved and easy to work with.

CiM Ming: Wow! such a beautiful glass. A little shocky at first but then I do tend to work hot. You may be able to see that Ming and Chalcedony are very similar in shade once the Ming has been struck to opaque.