Eye Candy

Cabochons - I'm continuing to work on these.

I'm rather liking these two.

CiM 536 Moonlight

If you follow the links to the CiM website that I post - you will see that the information I post is sometimes quite different from the results that other testers get. This is "your mileage will vary" in action. We have different working styles, different set-ups, and different approaches - so you might get results more like mine, or more like someone else's. It would be a sorry old world if we all got the same results all the time. Well - actually - it would be repeatable science - but gawd knows - what we are doing is art! Never the same twice!

CiM puts Moonlight in with the blues and says that it was a response to requests for a very pale tint. I personally thought it had more of a greenish tint, but it was just a hint of a tint.

Anyway - what I get in the moonlight was lots of tiny bubbles.

Thinking maybe I was overheating it - I slowed down and switched to the smaller torch - which did eliminate most of them - but not all. 

  You can see I also had some cracking. I've been having quite a bit lately - and all along that ridge I got in the bead release. Must try and dip the next batch to be more smooth.

 See - slightly greenish.

 I thought I'd try it over silver foil, and see if it was any easier to keep the silver looking silver, but it wasn't really any different. Too much heat and the silver foil reacts and looks gold.

Anyway - the boiled bubbly effect is kind of cool and I can see that you could make some nifty beads with that look - assuming it is reproducible. And not just me.

CiM 621 Emperor

CiM Emperor is not a "what you see is what you get" glass. For starters - the product code gives away that CiM does not consider this to be a pink (as the pinks are all 900 series numbers.)

I actually went looking for it in their browns section, as it is more of a cherry-amber colour to my eye.
CiM calls it a "golden transparent purple."

Just so long as you are not expecting it to stay the pretty pink that it is before you heat it.

 The mandrel on the left, with three beads, is, from the bottom, two self-coloured spacers and the third, at the end, was not struck before it went into the kiln. It went in clear and struck in the kiln to a colour not quite as deep as the other two.








The second mandrel, in the middle shows two selfies, one with ivory dots, and the one at the end - I reduced - to no apparent effect.









You can see from the next set of images that the angle of the light makes a difference to the end result.

It is a pretty enough colour - although something of a disappointment if you were hoping for a light cranberry.

CiM 120 Ladybug

CiM Lady bug reminds me very much of CiM Bing - which is one of my favourite reds. It is a vibrant red - technically - I think it is a transparent, which means it is stiffer than an opaque, but you'd have to put it over clear to get it to function as a transparent.

It has, delightfully - no trace of brown or liveriness - which is the thing that makes me happy in a red.  This is a self-coloured spacer.

The top mandrel of beads has a clear overwrap.

 This is what a red should be - vibrant and pure in colour. This is a winner.

CiM 435 Ogre

Creation is Messy has a number of new earth tones out - including 3 opaque greens and 2 opaque browns.

Ogre is the first up in the greens. It goes a pale blue grey when hot, but then strikes back to green as it cools. It is a streaky, and unfortunately - the fattish rods are shocky.



This is three self-coloured beads. 

 And here we have 3 lumpy beads, with globs of clear. You can see under the clear that Ogre looks paler than where it is uncovered.

These beads are not only ogre coloured - they look like ogre snot. CiM Ogre - the choice for making snot and booger beads. ;-)