CiM 804 Indigo

Ah - Indigo. A very dark, but transparent, blue from Creation is Messy.

Here is another very dark, intense colour that just begs to be used in white-cored cane, twisties, and other ways that need very intensely coloured glasses.

Here you see, from the top, a sample of white-cored cane, the original rod - yeah, might as well be black until you hold it up to the light, and some beads. When you do hold the rod up to a light - it shows more purple - more like violet - than the end result shows.

This is a self-coloured spacer - solid Indigo. You hold it up to the light - you can't see through it. The mark of a good thick wine, or glass.  ;-) 

 Indigo encased over clear.

 Indigo dots on white.

 Indigo/white cored cane squiggled on a white bead. Notice the way it almost looks like writing with an ink pen.

 And the white-cored cane on an ivory bead. The streaky texture of the cane is quite lovely.

Quite a beautiful shade of blue - on white it has that classical blue and white porcelain look. How can you go wrong with blue?

Effetre 688: Earth

Effetre 688 - Earth. It's blue.

I respect out of the box thinking - I really do. But Earth? Blue? Ok - maybe they were thinking of "that blue marble, Earth." Maybe it is named for the planet.

Earth - you tell me what colour you'd expect it to be.

It did look like it might be a streaky blue green while it was hot, but it cooled down to be a streaky blue. Streaky blue/green would have been cool. This is the second time this week that I've been disappointed that a glass is not a streaky blue/green.

Really - it looks more like Light Lapis - but I'll have to get some to confirm that. I don't seem to have any here.

Two self-coloured beads.

Disappointment notwithstanding - it's a lovely shade of blue. The Frantz website shows a sample paddle that is turquoise and blue - but I sure as heck didn't get that. Maybe because those are mashed. Guess I should test it some more.

Update - Effetre 687 Streaky Denim

Ooops - misread the label on the Effetre Streaky Denim. It is 687 - not 637.

 Just for fun - here's another picture of it - second bead from the left has white dots with some random blue on top.

Reichenbach 104 L 3206: Iris Dense Blue

Another 104 CoE colour from Reichenbach - this is Iris Dense Blue. It is a dark, opaque blue rod - the ones I got are super skinny - not sure if that is typical or just normal variability.

You can see that it goes quite a bit darker. When I was working this glass - it looked like a nice streaky blue, but appeared to strike to a dark green in the flame.

This is a self-coloured spacer. You can still see a little of the streakiness, but it was much more dramatic when it was hot.

This is actually over a clear base, although you would never know. When they say "Dense" - they really mean it!

This is dots of Iris Dense Blue on white. You can see that the white has fumed significantly - telling us that this glass has a significant silver content. There has also been some bleeding and some separating - so it looks like this glass has some potential for some interesting effects.

I should have tried reducing it. Interesting - interesting possibilities.

Effetre 263 Mou

Slotting into number 263 in the Effetre colour palette (between striking Powder Pink and Ivory) in a relationship that I think is probably meaningless - we have 263 - Mou. Frantz Art Glass calls it a "Premium Translucent" with a whack of cautions about "variations of colour and diameter from batch to batch and within batches. With a 1/4 pound limit per customer - this is a "you get what you get and you'll probably never get it again" glass.

The unworked rod appears as a very handsome golden, dark wheat colour - perhaps a little translucent looking - but we are used to glass that looks translucent but works up opaque.

After heating - the end of the rod appears to be more of a clear-to-amber colour.

 

While hot and working - the glass has an "opaly" quality - a milky translucence. It also appears to devitrify if cooled and gently reheated - causing me to wonder if this was a blend, like Calico - but the ends of the rod don't show that it is made of layers.

These two beads are self-coloured - and quite a handsome colour - amber - with a blush of pink in it - like a berry-cider blend. I chased away most of the devit with reheating to glowing and only a hint of it remains - not visible in this photo. It is, in fact, translucent. Cool.

 

And these two beads have been reduced - making them a dark bronze - with a metallic lustre. 

 

So - what I tried looks to be a very intriguing glass -  but with a caveat such as listed above, and a small sales limit - good luck finding out what this glass is really like, or duplicating results! 

Effetre 039: Dark Violet Transparent

Not sure how I've managed to overlook this colour for so long. This is not a new colour - but it is rather wonderful. This is Transparent Dark Violet, and the rods are so dark - you can easily mistake them for black, unless you hold them up directly to a light.

However, as we now know - a colour that dark just begs to be made into a white cored cane - bottom and right of photo. (Unworked rod - top and left).

On the right - we have a self-coloured spacer. Might as well be black. But on the left, we have Dark Violet over clear - and it is a lovely, tanzanite purple, not a red-purple. I very much prefer the pure purples and blue-purples. You could call it eggplant too.

Dots, on white. Looks like just the barest whisper of a reaction around the edges of the dots.

And this is the white cored cane/stringer - on a white bead. Very nice - the intensity of the purple really holds up.

Love this shade of purple, and this is very intense colour - for those situations where you need intense colour.

Effetre 737: Golden Toffee

 Well - HERE's an intriguing colour! A rich dark amber in the unworked rod, and goes into the kiln looking like a transparent amber. But - examination of the end of the unworked rod gives you a hint of what is to come ...

Because, pulling the beads out of the kiln is a real - "Whut?" moment - as in, "Where the heck did these come from?" Aha, my friends - this is where taking notes really helps!

Because this is what came out of the kiln!

 Yep - all those transparent beads came out a streaky, opaque ochre colour.

 

I even did a little zuma bear. Needs more nose. 

 

 Reducing it gives you a very smokey look, like a smoked wood.

And this bicone - well - I had stopped taking notes and was using up scraps. I believe it was a white base, some Iris orange frit - some trails of black, and some Golden Toffee on top and at the ends.  But pretty cool, eh?

I spent quite a bit of time playing with this glass - it's fun to work - too soft for most sculptural uses - it is soft like an opaque, like white-soft. It's kind of cool where it is over the black, and you can see the black coming through - I guess it is translucent when thin enough. Might be interesting to make shards of this.

Effetre 687: Streaky Denim

Streaky Denim - Denim seems to be one of the "in" colours these days - to whit - Swarovski's big roll-out of their new colour - Denim Blue.

This particular take on Denim is streaky blue and purple in the unworked rod - but more purple and  blue in the finished bead.

This is the unworked rod.

And this is the rod after heating.

 And the finished, self-coloured beads. Note, some of the purple has taken on that metallic shine like the Effetre 272 and 274 (Violet and New Dark Violet, respectively).

More dramatic results than the Striped Pink - possibly because the streaks run the length of the rod, instead of it being, essentially a cored cane. Not sure how I feel about the metallic hue though.

Effetre 253: Striped Pink Pastel

Another new, dare I say, Novelty glass? This is an opaque pink/purple a little like EDP or Dark Rose over a transparent core that results in a streaky bead. Not quite as dramatically streaky as I would have thought, I admit.

You can see here - the unworked rod is distinctly pinker that the purpley finished beads.

And here, you can see the transparent core - although it does, for all the world, look like a hollow tube. It is not. That would be way cool.

After working - you can see more of the colours, and some devitrification.

Here are two sample beads - both solid colours. The bead on the left - the darker one, I made a point of striking the bead in the flame, and it developed much richer colour.

Here - you can see the darker, struck bead (now on the right) has some devitrification around the bead hole, where  I did not get the surface warm enough to chase away the devitrification.

Pretty enough - I think I expected more drama though.

Bead Shaper - Bicone Indented

Interesting idea - don't think this is a shape that I would have thought of. I see this more as a starting place for designs - the indents, however, suggest a marking point for the start of some rather structured design - maybe with the lot of dots and or stripes. You know - the kind I never make. ;-)

There is a reverse version of this available too - if you think that having raised ridges would be more useful.

I did struggle with this shaper more than the last two, being never very happy with the ends.

The largest of the cavities did seem to be easier for me - but I like a little more meat on the ends of the beads - I just hate it when you go to clean a bead and half of the end falls off!

Still - an interesting concept. And the grooves would certainly lend themselves to wire wrapping ... .

Bead Shaper - Oval Extra Chunky Large

Yeeeeeah! Extra Chunky Large! That's MY kind of bead.

The more I use these bead shapers, the easier they get to use - so I think perhaps I might be getting better at it! What I have found is that using them with a very light touch seems to be key to getting good results quickly and easily, without a lot of struggle and drama.

This large oval shapes aren't  particularly difficult to make without a shaper, but of course, that's not the only point of these. They can make it easier to get consistent results, consistent sizes, etc. They aren't really an end - but a means to an end - more of a jumping off point. For instance, you could shape your bead with one of these, and then mash it, do it over and over, getting a consistent line of bead of the same shape and size, even if you are playing with the colours and patterns - making it much easier to incorporate into your own jewelry. Consistently-sized beads means that you don't have keep hunting up the right-sized bead-cap or guessing how much wire you need. Just a thought - for those of you out there in full production mode for the holiday rush.

Just a light touch will do it. Make a cylinder, make sure it fits inside the cavity, then add more on the middle half of the bead (leaving the ends). Check it for size, then add a little more to the centre. Do your shaping gently - more on the wall of the cavity than on the back (much like a marble mold!).

This bead fills the cavity a little more than the one above, but still was easy to shape. If you go to roll your bead and you get a big ridge on one side - you have too much glass and/or it was too hot. If you get a big valley - you put too much pressure on it.

Not the most spectacular beads, but the shape is fine.

And you can go on to decorate these from here!

Bead Shaper - Bamboo

Well - isn't this one fun? This is another of those funky graphite bead molds shaper doo-hickeys. This one was rather fun to use, for a change. The shape - well - it's so distinctive that I'm not sure what to do with it - but it was fun anyway. It's called Bamboo, but I find myself thinking of it as a chunky dog bone.

Here is my completed bead. Perhaps this shaper worked for me because I just relaxed and didn't sweat the shape too much.

Here is the bead - this is made with Rb Multi-Dark.

 

 

To get the shape right for the shaper, I started with a cylinder, built-up the ends a little with a disk at each end, and fattened up the cylinder in the centre. It worked pretty well. I'm quite pleased with it!