Cloudburst

The colours of these beads remind me of thundery skies and stormy weather. They're made with two beautiful glasses that look lovely but are right glassholes to work with.

The grey-blue-green is CiM Little Boy Blue and it's quite a streaky glass, by which I mean that it gets dark striations in it the more you work it.

The grey-blue is Effetre Navy Blue 238. It's not navy blue as I, and probably you, think of it but seeing as the glass is Italian maybe at some point in time the Italian navy wore a uniform this colour? I don't know. Whatever, it's a very lovely shade of grey-blue but it does that copper thing that a lot of the Italian blues and turquoises do where it will sometimes fizz and it'll also get a grey sheen if it's slightly cooled and reheated. The fizzing can cause pitting which is bothersome if you're not wanting an 'organic' look. The grey sheen on the surface is nothing a short soak in Harpic toilet cleaner won't fix. However, when you want to encase it the greying can cause a haziness between the two layers. To counteract this I find you have to get the base core bead right first time in one go. You can't re-roll it, you can't add more glass and you can't faff with it. You make the core, gently reheat it once to smooth out the chill marks and then encase it while it's still hot but not hot enough that you'll smoosh the core all about. It's a tightrope.

The clear here is Effetre Super Clear 006 and the decoration is Effetre Pearl Grey 268.

The beads are in my shop and a bracelet upgrade is available for them.