Messy testing - Antique Lace, Cake Batter, Daffodil, Alley Cat

I've been revisiting an idea from last summer, beads in a cave painting style, and it was an irresistible temptation to head straight towards my test rods of some of the newest CiM colours, Alley Cat in particular which is a glorious bright orange ochre opaque.

The plan was to make tab beads and then burnish on patches of  silver leaf to vapourise in the flame. I wanted to try this over some of the new ivory-ish, yellow and orange shades to see how much of an organic "ageing" effect I could give the glass colours.

The picture above shows my finished beads and cabochons which have been lightly etched with Etch All Dip'n Etch liquid. To the right is a picture of the back of each of these beads which shows the organic effects of the silver leaf before etching.

First up I would like to talk about Alley Cat ltd run. Love at first sight for me it was for me with this colour, it looks so bright and happy.Where the silver touched the bead there is a strong reaction which looks almost bronzish in places and the silver seems to fumed areas of Alley Cat adjacent to the silver giving a deeper shade.

Next up, Daffodil, not a new colour but new to the UK. I've used  Daffodil ltd run once or twice before and so already knew that it works up much darker than you would think when you see it in rod form. It reacts strongly with silver leaf leaving an finish that looks something like an antique mirror finish before it was etched. It is a cheerful sunny colour that is a couple of shades lighter that Alley Cat. Both are fab, well behaved glass colour with a retro feel.

Antique Lace also has a strong reaction with silver though without the hoped for patchy organic patterns than I got from either of the orange glasses. It was fumed faorly evenly from a light almost grey toned cream to a really pretty deep beige colour. The bright orange you can see on the front on my Antique Lace bead is Daffodil.

The last colour to mention today is Cake Batter which in rod form is the palest shade of pastel yellow. It behaved similarly to Antique Lace in that the whole surface area of the bead was fumed by the silver leaf when I vapourised it in the flame without distinct areas where the silver leaf had been touching the bead. In this case the colour change is striking, I got a deep almost distressed looking sandy brown, the lovely sandstone effect I had been hoping for.

Jolene x