Messy testing - Cranberry Pink and Emperor ltd run

In my latest testing package there was a rod each of CiM's gorgeous Cranberry Pink and their gold rich purple equivalent called Emperor.

CiM Baked Alaska ltd run base
Left: dotted with CiM Cranberry Pink and CiM Smurfty
Right: dotted with CiM  Emperor and CiM Smurfy

I had a lot of fun yesterday making these dotty lentils for comparison testing over a trio of neutral base colours, I was particularly looking to see how each trio of colours reacted with one another.

Effetre Opal Yellow base
Left: dotted with CiM Cranberry Pink and CiM Smurfy
Right: dotted with CiM  Emperor and CiM Smurfy

 CiM Honey Mustard
Left: dotted with CiM Cranberry Pink and CiM Smurfy
Right: dotted with CiM  Emperor and CiM Smurfy

Each of the 3 neutral colours "pool" beautifully as small dots over both Cranberry Pink and Emperor.


Smurfy (and so likely most other turquoise and copper based green opaque glass colours) pool beautifully over Cranberry Pink and Emperor.

Interstingly Smufy does not appear to pool or react with Baked Alaska ltd run and only very sligtly over Effetre Opal Yellow. It  does show signs of a pooling reaction as dots over Honey Mustard though.

Thanks for looking, Jolene xx

Messy testing - Egg White, Lemonade and Baked Alaska ltd run

In this post I am looking at 3 of the neutral shades of CoE 104 glass coming out in a few weeks from Creation is Messy. The first on show is CiM Egg White ltd run. It is a white opal glass that has been designed to stay translucent. This is the second glass of this new type that I have looked at so far (see my post on Elixir) and it too seems to have a kind of inner glow to it. Egg White is a fairly stiff glass that is not reactive with either turquoise (Smurfy dots) or handmade Effetre silvered ivory stringer.

Lemonade ltd run is described as a misty opal, it looks to me to be the palest possible shade of yellow and has a lovely cloudy look to it. Another stiff and well behaved glass to work with. Lemonade also does not react with either turquoise or with my handmade Effetre silvered ivory stringer.

This picture shows a side by side comparison of Egg White rustic hoops (left) and Lemonade hoops (right).
The translucency of each is not created by striking in the flame or by tweaking the flame chemistry, this is exactly how each glass works up in a neutral flame.

Baked Alaska ltd run is a pale ivory cream opaque glass that contains silver. As you can see from this pair of little lentil beads, it does not react with turquoise glass. I have used Smurfy over Baked Alaska to test this out.

Baked Alaska is highly reactive with silver though. I have burnished these beads with silver leaf and decorated with large Effetre aqua dots and then vapourised the silver leaf in my torch flame. You get this gorgeous mottled sand effect with tiny glistening droplets of silver left behind on the surface of the bead. A gorgeous effect!

Happy melting, Jolene x

Messy testing - Elixir and Elixir Sparkle ltd run

Today I am writing about two new opal green glass colours from Creation is Messy. They are called Elixir and Elixir Sparkle and they will be available to buy in the UK in a few weeks time.

The lighter shade is called Elixir ltd run, a soft delicate pastel semi transparent green. It seems to have an inner glow.

The darker hearts are made with Elixir Sparkle ltd run. In rod form Elixir Sparkle looks the same shade as Elixir but with tiny gold glittery inclusions.  When I worked the glass it darkened up quite considerably to give this swirly forest fern almost opaque green shade.

These rounds are made with a base of Elixir decorated with stripes of another new green glass called Willow ltd run. Willow is a pretty opaque mid green shade, I'll talk about Willow a bit more in a later blog post.

Elixir is very easy to work with, quite a stiff glass to melt in the flame.

The large lentil here is made with a thin core of Elixir which has been encased with a thick layer of Effetre 006 Clear glass. Again I have decorated the surface with Willow stringers.

This next pair of rounds were made with Elixir Sparkle, decorated with teal blue green stringers pulled from a rod of glass called Troi ltd run.

As with the hearts above, these rounds look much darker than Elixir Sparkle did in rod form.

This lentil below is made with a very thin core of Elixir Sparkle encased with Effetre 006 Clear and decorated with Troi stringers. The thin core of  Elixir Sparkle in this bead looks much less opaque than the solid Elixir spacers that sit next to it.

My test beads haven't manage to show any of the subtle sparkle you find in the Elixir Sparkle rods - I don't know if it is because the glass is becoming darker and more opaque when worked of if I was working too hot and burning out the sparkles and so I decided to try again the next day and work cooler. 

I chose to make these simple rustic hoops because I can work the glass quite cool and do not need to reintroduce the beads to the flame for shaping or decorating.

The results are interesting as the beads came out a lighter and slighlty less opaque shade than my previous Elixir Sparkle beads and spacers but I still couldn't see any of the sparkles.

Jolene xx

Messy testing - Tahitian Pearl ltd run

This is the most perfectly named glass! Tahitian Pearl ltd run is one of the newest CoE 104 lampwork colours coming out this winter from Creation is Messy. Tahitian Pearl is just dreamy to work with, it is super soft and buttery when melted and it has the most subtle metallic silver shimmer even when worked in a neutral flame.

These leaves and spacers have been created in a neutral flame - I flashed the leaves in and out of the flame a couple of time once they were formed to create a little more silver surface shimmer.

To get an even more pronounced silver metallic finish you can waft your bead through a slightly propane or oxygen rich flame to add a deeper and richer patina.

The petals on these flower beads were swiped on to the blue base bead in an oxygen rich flame, the resulting silver patina looks like brushed pewter.

To create this striped lentil bead I swiped on thick clear Effetre 006 stringers over a base of Tahitian Pearl to mask and protect parts of the original soft smoke grey rod colour from reacting to the flame chemistry. I melted the clear lines down flat and pressed the bead in a brass press then wafted the bead trough a propane rich flame few times to bring out the metallic patina on the non masked areas. In a propane rich environment the patina comes out looking industrial and textured.

These sweet and simple rustic hoop beads are one of  my favourte styles of bead to create. In Tahitian pearl they look especially pretty.

Happy melting, Jolene xx