Effetre 238 Navy Blue

I reviewed this before - and totally forgot about it. As before - I don't really consider this to be "Navy Blue," more of a Confederate Blue.

And, as before, it tends to get a metallic dull grey sheen on it.

However, unlike before, this time I etched it ...











And what I got was a lovely slate blue-grey.

This is definitely a colour that responds well to etching.

I like it a lot better now. ;-)

Desert Adventures

Jean at Nortel has been putting together CiM sample packs, new colours, or coordinated colourways, so that you can try different colours without committing to a full pack of each.

She put one together (at my insistence) that is called Desert Adventures. It looks like a pack of brownish neutrals - hence the desert part of the name, but is made up of CiM colours that can do tricksy or interesting things. Primarily - I wanted to be able to test the different colours - so there might have been a wee bit of self interest in my urging. ;-)

If you want to explore a pack of neutrals/browns/naturals/earthtones for animals, landscapes, or just earthy inspired images - this is a great way to go.

Here be dragons:

Top row, from the left:  CiM 722 Canyon de Chelly - etched, with dots of Effetre 238 Navy blue. Next, CiM 313 Painted Hills - turned out surprisingly light. Next, CiM 719 Moccasin, with turquoise in the base bead, and last in the top row, CiM Canoe, etched. This is my new favourite colour.

Bottom row, from the left, CiM Phoenix. What a great dragon colour! and finally, CiM 727 Van Dyke Brown.

There are more colours in the Desert Adventures, but as you can imagine, making a dragon is non-trivial and takes a lot longer than a simple spacer. ;-) And I wanted to let you know about this colour pack, cuz I think it's cool.

Val Cox Frit: Viola Blue

Another new frit colour from Val Cox - this is Viola Blue. I was drawn to the blues and purples in the mix, and it does not disappoint.

Again, one of the colours makes pits in the glass, so you will not get a mirror smooth finish unless you encase it.

This is over a base of black, with a couple of streaks of white, and then rolled in the frit, melted in, and mashed. 

 This is just over a base of white. Both are very nice. I think I see the face of a baby donkey in the frit in the bead above (in the top left corner.)

Val Cox Frit: Jellyfish

Picked up some new Val Cox Frits - from her collection of new colours. This is Jellyfish, and it's pretty cool.

This little square tab is a core of clear, and Jellyfish on top. 

This larger focal is a core of white, with an opaque dark grey at each end, and jellyfish all over. 

One of the colours in there definitely makes pits in the glass, so you won't get an all-over smooth finish. I think I like the clear base one better, but that could be because I happened to get a nice blobby swirl of turquoise and purple.

Double Helix Skiron

This is my first run at the new Double Helix Skiron, and again, I don't think I did it justice.

Double Helix says:

Skiron is our new, sliver-striking, rainbow glass.  A major improvement over Luna 3 and Khaos, it resists over striking to khaki.  Skiron works best when reset, cooled, and struck. Cooling and striking times will vary based on bead size, flame temperature, and...

Not sure if I defied the "resists over striking" or just didn't strike it enough.  Above is a single round and 4 spacers with a base of Double Helix Oracle, and Skiron applied. The spacers just show a faint smear of blue. Not sure where the Skiron went.

 This is two sides of the same bead. Clearly more experimenting is required, as I am not getting the full range of colours.

 I am thinking I did not strike it enough. Oh well - I will try again.

Double Helix Pheobe

This is my first run at the new Pheobe - and I don't think I did it justice.

The disk is reduced, and the square is reduced and encased.

Double Helix calls it a "peachy super luster" and I think I might have missed that a bit. It is very nice though and I think I have to try again.

Comparison: Reichenbach Pearl Beige vs Mystic Beige

As we have just seen - these offerings from Reichenbach in their 104 CoE line do slightly different things.


The top rod and three spacers is the Mystic Beige, and the bottom rod and  four spacers is the Pearl Beige. The Mystic starts clear and gets a streaky opacity, and the Pearl starts translucent and has a pearly shimmer, if you don't over heat it.

Reichenbach 104: 0701 Mystic Beige

Reichenbach 104 - a 104 CoE glass - this is Mystic Beige.

Although the rod is clear, the beads come out with clouds. It develops a pleasant streaky opacity.

Reichenbach 104 L7015 Pearl Beige

Reichenbach 104 - 104 CoE glass from Reichenbach. This is Pearl Beige, a glass that looks like shampoo glass. Shampoo glass has a translucent shimmer - like - Hey! Shampoo! - that will disappear to clear if you overheat it, i.e. partially seen in the top mandrel, right bead. The rod doesn't resemble shampoo glass - so this was a bit of a surprise for me.

The colour is a warm dilute honey - so beige isn't the term I would have used, but meh - it gets the job done.

CiM 215: Butternut

CiM Butternut - a juicy, squashy orange that lives up to its name absolutely. If you want an earthy or happy orange - this is your colour.











 Three self-coloured spacers.

The one on the right has some frit melted in.

This is a base of Butternut, with the Val Cox Frit - Astarte - as shown last week.

To get that hurricane twist with an eye in the middle - twist with a clear stringer or rod, and then melt off and melt in the stub.

This is a base of butternut, with the Val Cox Frit Purple Rose, also as shown last week.

Val Cox Frit: Purple Rose

Purple Rose - not a new blend by any stretch of the imagination.

Val Cox describes it as:

Beautiful variegation between purple and blue violet. For best results, use an oxygen rich flame and cool slowly.

I, of course, did not read that until after using it, so just used it the way I would use any glass, and it came out pretty fine anyway. 

 There is chunks of blue, which can separate and show a little green in them, ...

 And chunks of purple, which display a colour very similar to the old Effetre EDP at its best, with spackles of blue.

I got the #2 grind - which is fairly large chunks. I really do find that the fine-ness of the size makes a difference in the end look.

Val Cox Frit: Iron Oxide

Here's another fun new frit from Val Cox. Iron Oxide. Val calls it:

Reactive blend, includes second generation raku and rich garnet among others. Heat well and cool, then repeat for color effects, or use normally for different tones.

 I certainly got some interesting colours out of it!

This one was far and away the most exciting.

the other side. I admit to being more excited by blue and purple than the earthier tones.

I have found that the raku family of glass - if you know what I mean - looks really spectacular on a base of opaque grey.

And this one was special because it on clear, but ...

only one side - so the other side is a window onto the clear - or like super thick encasing.

Val Cox Frit: Astarte

Synchronicity - you never hear of anything, and then it's everywhere. I chose this fiery frit from Val Cox called Astarte without really paying too much attention to the name. Then someone handed me an article on archeology regarding a discovery in Spain, and the article mentions the goddess Astarte!


And a fiery frit it is - this will pump the colour of hot embers into your bead. 













And with a bit of a swirl. The base colour here is  CiM 215 Butternut.

Eye Candy - Dragon

Dragon, made on the new Nortel Arrow.

Glass is Double Helix TerraNova

CiM 623 Cleopatra

CiM Cleopatra is a super dark, dense transparent purple that is easy to mistake for black in bad lighting.

The point of  this is not to use it by itself, but to use it in applications where a regular colour would disappear. Think super thin layers. Think shards. Think cane and stringers.




This flower is 3 dots of periwinkle, partially melted down, a cut into the dot vertically with a razor tool, a dot of cleopatra on each petal, melt down, poke the center, trap air bubble and encase. I have a video of flowers, in case you are looking for a brush up on the technique.

 This is super fine trails, melted in.

 And this is a cored-cane made by encasing periwinkle with Cleopatra, pulling about a meter of cane out, and encasing the bead, and melting it down.

You can see from this, there is a lot of potential for using ultra-dense colours!

Reichenbach 104 Ocean

Got my hands on some Reichenbach 104 CoE glass called Ocean. Ocean appears to be a blue aventurine, or blue + aventurine. It's got sparklies in it, and it's not so dark blue as to be nearly black.

The sparkle is fairly subtle, as with aventurine in general, but it works pretty easily too.

This is a large hole (not very hollow) and you see more or less of the sparkle as you change the angle you are viewing from.

It's not full-on hard core bling like 3 layers of dichro, but it is nice and would make a nice background. Totally worth using.

This is a 104 CoE glass, and I had no issues with compatibility.

Look what I got!

Oooooo. Look what I got! A new toy to play with! I'm going to be trying out the Nortel Arrow!

I'm really looking forward to this, such fun!