CiM Purple Haze

CiM Purple Haze - over silver foil. Now THIS shines!

This was a core of something dark - I thought it was black but I see a little blue - so I think it might be indigo or one of the dark colours that I have tested recently.

A layer of silver foil, and then encased. This is photo'd in cool light. You can see where the Purple Haze has reacted with the silver to turn golden, in some places more than others.The overall effect is a antiquey gold on gold look.

Here it is again,in warm light - the golden effect is still there, but now it is more of a pink and gold.

Purple Haze over Silver Foil - WIN!

TAG Tibet - Opaque vs Clear

Tibet, from Trautman Art Glass - is "a transparent version of Dalai Lama"  - according to their website. So imagine my surprise when the latest batch that I picked up was opaque in the unworked rod.

The opaque variation is significantly easier to strike!

Here we have, the Tibet (Opaque) on the left of the black line, with significantly more colours - and Tibet (Clear rod) on the right.

Same bead, different side.

All of these are the Tibet-clear rod, and encased. The two on the left just would not strike. The two on the right struck - but I'm not that enamored of the colour.

These four are the Tibet-opaque - you can see that I had a lot more success with these! These are also all encased.

Here we have, three on the right that are the Tibet - opaque, and the two on the left, were a mix of the clear and opaque. All are encased.

I'm gonna scoop up all of this batch I can get my hands on - it is waaaay nicer to work.

TAG Dalai Lama vs Dalai Lotus

In my latest bundle of TAG glass - something labeled Dalai Lotus.

Here is the same bead - showing all sides. The Dalai Lama is on the left, the Dalai Lotus on the right. They seem fairly similar, except their seems to be some purples and reds in the D. Lotus on one side. Given the vast range of colours in these glasses - it's fair to say that one bead does not a test make. ;-)

Either glass sure is impressive though!

BTW - that is a band of black separating the two colours - simply for reference purposes.

These are all Dalai Lotus, encased.  

And this is the Dalai Lama - encased.

Ain't this a beauty? It started as three beads side by side (Tibet - clear) - which got away from me, so I filled in with Dalai Lama, added a few trails of Triton, and encased it and marvered it.

 Here you can see what was where.

This was similar - but mashed. Never got this one to strike to my satisfaction, however. 

Some days - the glass just sings for you. On those days - just work until you drop. ;-)

CiM 602 Purple Haze Ltd Run

CiM calls Purple Haze "a transparent that shifts between blue and lavendar, depending on the lighting." Effetre makes a colour like that - but it is totally unlike this colour.


In the world of commercially made beads - fire-polish, pressed glass, and crystal, this colour is generally called "Alexandrite." 


It can look like this. (Photo copyright beadFX Inc - all rights reserved, used with permission).

However, for me, the Purple Haze does not show blue in fluorescent light, but rather a light grey.   I dunno - mebbe I smoked it. (Maybe they will look better off the mandrel and cleaned?)

 Here it is in warm light - it is a much redder purple than the Effetre 080 and 081 - Light and Dark Lavender.

 Here is the Purple Haze - shown with a bracelet made up of a mix of glasses, but with quite a bit of the Effetre Lavendar (Colour shifting).

 Here it is again in fluorescent light. The red arrows note the same bead, you can see that the change is quite dramatic.

Anyway, the cool light/blue phase of this glass - doesn't look light blue to me. The warm light - reddish purple pink colour is pretty enough though.

CiM 102 Valentine

Here's another of the new reds from CiM. CiM calls Valentine "a saturated and bright opaque red."

It is a bright red  in very strong light. It has a tendency to look dull though, if the light isn't strong enough, and it is difficult to photograph accurately.

See - here we have two self-coloured beads. In real-life, you can practically smell the cherry-pie filling - but here - they look dark and gloomy.

This is a very thin layer over clear - and it reads as a transparent.

And Valentine as dots on white - notice that it looks like a super-dense transparent here.

Here - I tried photographing it in different lighting conditions. This isn't too bad.

This is right up close under the incandescent desk light.

And this one I colour corrected manually - it looks reasonably right on my monitor - your mileage may vary.

It is easy to strike. Like I said - it is a nice colour in person - cherry pie filling red - but hard to shoot - so if you do a lot of etsy or ebaying - be prepared to tear your hair out!

Effetre Earth - Yet Again

I apparently can't let this one go - although I am starting to suspect that some rods are more inclined to do funky things than others.

To recap - this is a new colour that the colour paddle on the Frantz website indicates should look like this:

 And I tend to get results more like this. I love the streakiness - but I want that ^. Big patches of turquoise.

 These two - I tried reducing. Meh. I did switch to the Mega for a more focused flame.

 Aha! Much more interesting. This is a hollow - built the disks up slowly - then pushed them together using the star mashers. Very effective way to make a hollow quickly, btw. Much faster than building up over the centre.

 OK - I cheated - the ivory makes a really strong reaction that is amazing and awesome.

 Check out that dragonfly green on the end - that's Triton, reduced. Never had it go that colour before.

 This is a cabochon - Earth and White, encased.

 And again, on ivory. I like the one with the ivory on top better.

So Earth is very, very reactive with Ivory. It must have a lot of copper in it. It seems to react better to a smaller, focused flame.

I'll get it yet!

Comparison, CiM Seafoam, Kryptonite, Mint Lozenge

Head to head comparison of the three sea foam / Amazonite colours from CiM.

From the left, we have Seafoam, Kryptonite, and the new, Mint Lozenge.

The Mint Lozenge is a little bluer, the Seafoam is a little deeper (and possibly more translucent), but really close to Kryptonite.

Comparison: Lapis, Earth, Blue Suede Shoes

With all these wonderful, deep, dark opaque cobalt-like blues, a head-to-head comparison is in order!

Here we have, from left to right,  Effetre 242 Medium Lapis, Effetre 240 Light Lapis, Effetre Earth, and CiM Blue Suede Shoes.

In this photo, on my monitor - and take my word for it when I say that this dark blue is exceedingly hard to photograph and reproduce faithfully - the Light Lapis and the Blue Suede Shoes look like a near match - but in real life - the better match is Medium Lapis and Blue Suede Shoes. The three Effetre Lapis's - Light, Medium and Dark (not shown) tend to very in colour from batch to batch so what is a good match now, may not be true for next year.

Here's a close up of Earth - looking streaky and w/o the colour separation that makes this colour so intriguing. 

 This is Blue Suede Shoes, up close, and a little streaky.

 And finally  - the two Lapis's - Med and Light. The Light is showing some streakiness too. Well - so is the Medium, but it's more obvious on the light.

It's blue - you can't go wrong with bluuuuuuue.

CiM 702 Marachino

CiM has released a quartet of new reds - Maraschino, Valentine, Crimson, and Ruby Slippers. There's Auburn too - but CiM has put that with the Browns (700 series).(I'll be review the other 3 shortly.)

Of these new reds - Maraschino is the big winner. Maraschino is a bright, happy transparent red, with a tendency to opacify as it is worked (common in transparent reds) and no sign of "liveriness" - or browning as it is worked. Worked thin, it shows a slight orangey-ness. I prefer my reds a little on the blue side - (think raspberries vs strawberries) but I'll take a slightly orange red over a liver-red any day.

It also stays red in fluorescent lighting. The other three, and Auburn too, look distinctly more brownish in fluorescent lighting.

 Here we have - two self coloured spacers. Notice the first one made (on the right), is almost opaque at the core, looking like a red encased over red. (More reheating - as it is kept warm while making the next beads). The one on the left had developed clouds too - not as much yet.

 This is a clear core, and an encasing of Maraschino. Even so, some clouds have appeared.

 Dots on white. Where it has thinned at the edge - you can definitely see the orangey-ness of this.

 And here it is in a feather - with some clear. Mostly, it has opacified, but is still a brilliant and beautiful red.

Maraschino for the Win!

CiM 901 Cotton Candy - Revisited

Realizing that Cotton Candy is one of the Moonstone glasses, like Cirrus - oops! - I went back and tried it again.

When I first tried it - it had a vaguely milky appearance in the unworked rod, (which I can't show you, as I used all of mine up before I photo'd it.) I expected it to be a little cloudy, and I actually encased a black bead with it - which came out of the kiln looking - black - and left me wondering - wtf was I thinking? (A not uncommon occurrence, btw.)

So, when an astute and tactful reader said "Did you get the moonstone effect?" I was, "Huh?"

The key is you have to strike it for the cloudiness, or, you can work it quite cool, and it seems to develop quite subtly. You don't really see it happen, you notice that it HAS happened.

It is actually very pretty, a nice soft pink. If you get it very hot, you lose the cloudy effect, and you need to really let it cool and then strike it. Gentle reheating at the tip of the flame or just touching the underside edge of the flame. If I have to strike a glass, I generally work multiple beads at a time, so I have something to do while waiting for the glass to cool, and working four at a time was too much for this glass - it gets too cool and cracks - I had significant breakage while working, and had to keep reheating to heal the bead, and then lose the cloudiness and start all over again to strike it.

Here, however, it worked much nicer - this is a hollow, Cotton Candy on the left, a little clear, and the darker pink is CiM 907 Rose Quartz. This application worked much better, as the initial application of glass is fairly cool, and it isn't until you go to round the hollow that you lay the heat in.

It requires some attention to get the moonstone effect in this glass, but some bead shapes and types lend themselves to it better than others.

Anyway - Cotton Candy is a Moonstone, like Cirrus, Halong Bay, and Peacock Green.

CiM Obsidian Revisited

Tried the Obsidian with Triton, reduced and fumed a little.

Not sure that it is amazingly more effective than on anything else - but you can see that the bead triton is reflective enough to show the pink t-shirt I was wearing while shooting it!

Another reason why I generally wear black all the time - not so obvious in the reflections.