And it was all yellow

The last couple of days have been sponsored by the colour yellow.

I bought a couple of bunches of daffodils on Saturday and I was expecting them to be bog standard, all-yellow, classic daffodils, but when they opened they had pale yellow petals and deep orange trumpets. Pretty!

I took a few photos of them using my Olloclip macro lenses.

Daffodil gubbins

There was a tiny little fly inside one of the daffodils.

I also took a photo of a bright yellow dandelion on the lawn.

Reminds me of fire

Then while I was putting glass rods away I found a rod of yellow Creation is Messy glass from a couple of testing bundles back. I don't quite know why I never got around to testing it, but I thought I'd give it a go because I need a new yellow for my Bumblebeads. I used to use CiM Hollandaise for them but that is long gone now, so this bee, the flowers and the yellow spacers in this set are made with CiM Goldenrod.

Goldenrod is a touch brighter than Hollandaise, which was a bit more mustard with a tad more orange about it. Goldenrod is a very yellow yellow, but not in an acid yellow kind of way. It's just a bright, happy yellow. It works well for my Bumblebeads as it's not streaky. Some opaque yellows get transparent streaks in them but Goldenrod is a nice 'flat' yellow. I've ordered some more so I can make a few more bees.

CiM Testing: 'Musk'

I'm back with more beads. These ones are made in CiM 'Musk', a kind of greenish-yellow with a touch of pale amber-brown to it. I'm not overly-keen on this glass. You can read more about my thoughts on it over on my Tumblr, if you like.

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.