CiM Testing: Goji

Goji is the perfect name for this colour. It’s a goji berry orange-red that is not transparent enough to call transparent but also not fully opaque.

I didn’t strike the glass as such; I just made beads with it in my usual way so if there was any striking it would have happened while I was rounding up the beads and adding the spots.

These beads have a core of CiM Creamsicle encased with a thin layer of Goji. There are slight colour variations towards the holes where I moved the glass with a brass tool, and this normally occurs with reds, oranges and yellows, but they barely show. 

The glass was smooth to work with and it didn’t shock or bubble.

The spots on the beads are CiM Quetzal and the spacers are CiM Peacock Feather.

The beads were photographed outdoors on an overcast day.

'Future's Bright'

I keep making orange beads lately. This is partly because there were a couple of oranges in my last CiM testing batch and partly because ... I don't know. Sometimes I just get a little fixated on a particular colour.

I can't recall if I've ever paired orange with grey before but I definitely have now. These 'Future's Bright' beads are made in CiM Alley Cat (more to be said about this orange in a future post) and Effetre grey and pale amber.

I won't lie - as I was making this set I was thinking "Laura, I think these might end up sitting unpurchased and unloved" but you know what? Even if they do, I don't mind because I really like them, so if you don't want them, I'll have them.

I really like the fact that this set is both subtle and zesty at the same time. As I've said in the description on their shop listing, imagine them with blue jeans and a grey T-shirt. They'd blend in but the orange would sing against blue denim and it'd add a "Hey! ZINGPOP!" to an everyday outift.

So yeah, if you too can see the potential in these orange and grey lovelies, there's just one set of them in my shop, priced at £17.50.

CiM Testing: Sunset, Daffodil & Bing

I've been meaning to write this post for an age but life events (mainly involving a guinea pig) keep interrupting pretty much all my plans, but here I be now.

I've got three colours to talk about in this Creation Is Messy testing post - Sunset, a proper-proper orange, Daffodil, a bright, warm yellow and Bing, a transparent orange-red.

The photograph below shows Sunset and Daffodil both heavily and thinly encased with CiM clear and also as stringer.

Sunset is (in my head) what an orange glass should be. It's not streaky, it's not too bright and it behaves itself. I had no cracking issues when I encased it and like other CiM oranges such as the wonderful Creamsicle, it works wonderfully as stringer. You can't do stringerwork with Effetre orange. (I mean their actual opaque orange; not their countless 'corals'.)

CiM are also fab at yellow. I find the Effetre yellows to be either vile-looking or not opaque enough but Daffodil is just beautiful. It's a deep, vibrant yellow and again, it works perfectly as stringer and I had no encasing issues. That's right, a yellow that you can encase. I use CiM clear for encasing and have had no trouble encasing Daffodil, Hollandaise the Creamiscle-gone-yellow batch that floated about for a bit or Pumpkin. Some of those yellows are now no more but hey, those encasing funtimes were so good while they lasted.

Both Sunset and Daffodil etch really well too. The 'Chilli' set at the top of this post, and also the beads above, feature both normal and etched beads.

Now for Bing. There always seems to be a transparent red in the CiM testing batches and as much as I adore red as a colour, I find it to be awkward as a glass; the opaques tend to get dark streaks (which is why I almost always dust it with red enamel in order to disguise that and achieve a uniform colour), the transparents need striking which is just annoying and can produce inconsistent colour results, and as a general rule, red and encasing mixeth not. So yes, I'm always a bit oh-it's-another-transparent-red and generally a bit meh when I get a red to test.

So imagine my delight when Bing turned out to be a NICE red to work with! It's actually pretty easy to get consistent colour results with it. I didn't encase it and I didn't decorate it. I only had one rod and I spent far too long just making spacers, marvelling at how easy it was to get lovely results. Bing has a orangeness about it which reminds me of strawberry tea. I was also able to make hearts with it which is normally a no with transparent reds because when I add the 'lobe' part of the heart I usually get a visible 'seam' where the base glass and lobe glass meet but NO, not with Bing. It also etches well.

To achieve consistent Bing colour results, I made a bead, brought it out of the flame until all the heat glow had disappeared plus about five seconds, then reheated it in the top section of my flame until a uniform redness covered the bead. Same as striking CiM Sangre, really.

All in all, these three colours are fab. If you love no-fuss, warm, fiery colours then all three of these are a must for your glass stash but you'll need to grab these whilst you can; all three are limited runs.

CiM Testing : Pumpkin

You know how I feel about yellow beads - I blogged about it a few weeks back. As I said in the comments for that post I am drawn to warmer, slightly orangey yellows and CiM Pumpkin is one of those.

Pumpkin is a rich, smooth mango colour. It also reminds me of tinned peaches! Below is a set of test beads that I made in order to show you how Pumpkin compares to other yellows and yellow-oranges :

Beads from left to right : Pumpkin, Pumpkin etched, Pumpkin thinly encased with Vetrofond clear, Pumpkin thickly encased with Vetrofond clear, CiM Creamsicle, Effetre 412 Dark Yellow and Effetre 416 Bright Yellow.

As you can see, the Pumpkin is lighter in colour and less streaky than the Effetre Dark Yellow. I found the Pumpkin very nice to work with - it's got a middle-of-the-road consistency. It encases really well too and looks absolutely beautiful when it's etched.

Pumpkin has an element of translucency about it and that is always a sign that the glass may not lend itself to the kind of fine, crisp stringerwork that I am do. My suspicions were confirmed. The photograph below shows Pumpkin as polka dots on a CiM Peace bead cased with CiM Simply Berry.

As you can see, the dots have lost a bit of their yellowness and as linework the stringer loses its crispness and definition. That's not just limited to Pumpkin - a lot of the 104 yellow-oranges do the same thing. As I say, I think this might be related to its slight translucent properties.

But as a base glass and for raised dots and relief work CiM Pumpkin is a stunner. The Pumpkin beads below are encased with a thin layer of Vetrofond clear and the stringerwork and spacers are CiM Lapis.

If you're looking for a smooth and fruity yellow-orange then I suggest you give the lovely CiM Pumkpin a whirl. I can imagine that it would look ace with bright pink, rich purples and darker oranges and reds.