Crazy for Color - Odd Lots and More

Beadmakers. Have we all gone insane? When it comes to glass color, I would say - yep. We’re nuts. Dangle a newly-released rod color in front of us and we salivate. I think it all started when Effetre released their Handmade line back when I first started making beads, a little over five years ago. All of a sudden there were these new colors out - most of them opaque - that looked completely different than any other glass out there. At least to my newbie eyes they did.

Some rods were giant, some were teeny, some were even cone-shaped. And because they were all handpulled at the factory, instead of pulled by machines, we could see all the different batches and had fun picking our favorites.

We all drooled over the new Opaque Purple, which turned out to be a nightmare for some, earning it the name Evil Devitrifying Purple. Gorgeous, but eeeeeevil. I probably won’t have it reviewed here on Coloraddiction, because I am……EDP challenged. We got excited by Copper Green and the dark version of Teal transparent. We saw a bunch of new opaque pinks, some of which were….weird (Tongue, Powder). We marveled at the new violets and the Sage and Avocado greens. We wondered what the heck Effetre was thinking when they named their new dark pine green transparent “Dark Sage”.

At that same time, we also saw Effetre’s coolest mistake ever. The enigmatic and hard to find Streaky Pink. Effetre just thought they made a crappy batch of their Dark Pink 256 (or was it Light Pink 260?)….but no. That glass was seriously cool, at least in my opinion, and led to the Streaky Pink craze, where beadmakers were buying and selling this glass online for several hundred dollars a pound - sometimes even more. I admit to falling prey to its siren’s call over and over again. I even became known online as the Queen of Pink – and probably other, less attractive names – when I began showing all my pink beads to everyone. People thought I was crazy to pay what I did for an opaque pale pink shade. But what I did with it turned out to be quite nice – if I do say so myself.

I think it was that one glass color that brought on the Odd Lot insanity we see now in the glass market. Mistakes made by glass manufacturers are now called Odd Lots - and they have discovered that we beadmakers are defenseless against the temptation of buying every single Odd Lot out there. One glass company, Vetrofond, has pretty much become Odd Lot Central to us. They release a new Odd Lot practically every hour. And the colors are becoming more and more complex and dare I say….freaking cool. They started with Coral 420 (how many batches are there of that – 20 or so?) and worked their way through to some really interesting tri-color and organic shades.

To keep up with the insanity of us beadmakers, we have seen a surge of new glass companies starting up that specialize in their own new color formulas. Since I started in the lampwork field, I have seen Vetrofond start their Odd Lots, Double Helix (which specializes in handmade silver glass colors), Creation Is Messy (CIM), ASK 104 (a partnering of Arrow Springs and Kugler), Precision aka R4 (which was primarily a borosilicate maker, but is coming out with 104 coe silver glass) and more. All these makers create soft glass in the 104 range, and are adding new colors to their line all the time.

There’s just so much more out there, choosing glass is almost confusing, and a whole lot more exhilerating than it used to be. We beadmakers are eating it up. Just look at the bidding wars on ebay that happen when a rare color goes up for sale. We often stalk the smaller glass makers’ websites for brand new colors, and we buy them out of stock as soon as we possibly can. We bug the larger vendors on a constant basis about when we can expect whatever new color that has been previewed. They can barely keep up with our demand. Frantz Art Glass now has a newsletter dedicated almost completely to new colors. We’re just out of our minds. But we’re happy about it!

Tried & True: Effetre 266 Opal Yellow

Opal Yellow came out when many of the other “handmade” Effetre colors came out - they are pulled by hand instead of machine pulled. This means that there are 8 zillion different batches, and the rods can be kind of, well, irregular.

You’ll find this color in a whole bunch of different diameters and rod colors. Some have tiny holes running the length of the rod - and if you’re like me, you learn to hate those holes. They make the glass bubble when melted - so that’s something you might want to keep an eye out for. Also, be very careful, as this is one color that tends to be shocky - introduce it to the flame slowly, otherwise some rods may shatter and fly. Wear your safety glasses!!

As for color batches - well, that’s the fun part with this color. It comes in quite a few shades, running from a pale buttercream shade to a deep, blushing peach/mustard kind of deal. Look for the rose and yellow rings on the ends of these rods - the more pronounced they are, the more of a striking batch you have.

All of the batches tend to work about the same - it’s a buttery soft glass that melts relatively quickly and takes a few seconds to cool enough to add decorative elements.

Opal Yellow strikes like nobody’s business. And it’s pretty sensitive to temperature as well. You can use it as a base and then strike in different flames to see what it does - there’s lots of subtle color changes with this glass. The color changes even more as you add decorative elements on top of a base. Depending on how dark the batch is to begin with, you’ll get variations of pale yellow, cream, tan, pale pink, pale peach and pale orange - often all on the same bead. Once you get to know this glass, you can gain some control over the colors you might be getting.

As for layering, this glass is just wonderful under all the amber and brown transparents, and is particularly pretty when layered with Rubino Oro. If you’re into animal print styles, then this is the color for you!

Use it with some of the handmade colors made around the same time, like opaque Purple, Turquoise and Copper Green, and you can get some fun reactivity out of it. Make twisties with it and some of those colors for a real treat! Opal Yellow is also reactive with itself - it can create color striations and a bit of separation of colors when layered on one bead.

I don’t use silver on my beads (yet), but I hear and see that other artists have a lot of fun using Opal Yellow with silver and with frits. If you’re into that, it may be something you want to try.

Overall, I would say that Opal Yellow is the one color, besides pink, that I have used the most of. I just love it and I hope it never goes away!

Rising Star: CIM C0508 Leaky Pen

This alluring shade of blue-green is probably my very favorite from the new Creation Is Messy glass color line. There’s nothing like it in any of the soft glass lines that I know of - with the exception of perhaps Bullseye. The combination of this color and the dark purple shade I talked about earlier makes my knees positively weak. Yum!

Leaky Pen is a very saturated transparent color - almost black looking if you’re not paying attention. It’s a pretty stiff glass to work with - it reminds me a little of Lauscha in that regard. It can also get a little bit scummy - but that scum tends to burn off quite well.

I’ve encased it a number of times with clear - sometimes layered over light grey, sometimes over light blue - and it does pretty well. Use it sparingly, though - because as most stiffer 104’s, it can crack if you use a ton of it under an encased layer.

This color pulls into the most gorgeous stringer ever - you can use it alone, or even make encased stringer with it and grey or blue. It reminds me of a stormy Caribbean ocean. Or, yeah, pen ink.

The CIM website has more info on this and other CIM colors - and some of my beads are even pictured in the Leaky Pen section.  :) 

When I First Started Making Beads…

“When I First Started Making Beads….”You’re probably going to see me say that a lot in this blog. Seriously - things have changed dramatically in the glass world in the five years since I took my first beadmaking class. At least in my little corner of the glass world - the beadmaking section. New glass companies have come (and gone), new colors come out all the time, and more and more people are learning how to make beads and falling in love with glass. In this section of my blog, called “A Beadmaker’s Musings”, I’ll explore the crazy world of glass as it relates to me - one beadmaker among a gazillion.

Rising Star: Effetre 039 Dark Violet Transparent

Effetre has been putting out new transparent purple shades quite a bit in the last
few years, and I think they finally hit on a definite winner with this deep,
saturated purple. It’s several levels darker than the relatively new Ink Blue
Violet (058V, supposedly an Effetre Odd).

I was confused when this color came out
(with its sister 041 Light Violet) - Effetre had released the Ink Blue line of
colors not too long before, and they are all really lovely. In fact, 041 Light
Violet is almost exactly the same shade as Ink Blue Violet. Confused? It gets
better, I promise.

I was actually very pleasantly surprised when I first got this color several months
ago, because it is really saturated - a spacer made out of this color would appear
almost black. But pull this gorgeous glass into stringer and you have purple at
its most royal.

This transparent color is relatively stiff - slightly stiffer than other
transparents in the same line. It’s got great clarity, though - I haven’t
experienced much bubbling or scumming at all. It also has no reactive or striking
qualities that I have seen. Just a great deep transparent color - deeper than any
of the other purples out there in anything close to 104 coe that I have seen.

Layer this glass over Pastel Ink Blue (aka Light Lavender Blue, #247) for a rich
purple. Encase that with any of the transparent lavenders or clear to lighten it
up for a great grapey base.

Effetre may be coming out with a gazillion different purples, but who cares when
they are all so gorgeous! This one is my fave so far.

Tried & True: Effetre 456 Rubino Oro (aka Gold Pink)

This beautiful color is probably the one I have worked the most with in the last five years, and the one color I am most known for among my lampworking friends.Rubino is the basis for all things pink in the 104 coe world - with the exception of a few new colors coming out lately. But if you want to make beads with pink in them, Rubino is the best place to start.

There are as many batches of Rubino as there are stars in the sky, it seems. In rod form, they range from almost perfectly clear, to a deep transparent wine color. And you’ll soon discover that rod color is important. To start with, you want a batch that falls somewhere in the middle - most glass sellers have these on hand. The color shown in the swatch above is about what you want to look for in rod form.

Rubino is not the easiest color to work with (of course!). It’s persnickity as all get-out, and if you work with it in the flame for too long, you can completely burn out all the color. Ack! Here are some tips to start you out with - then don’t be afraid to experiment.

The first thing to keep in mind is that Rubino likes a slightly oxygenating flame, and the smaller the flame, the better. I work this color a bit higher up in the flame as well.

As long as the flame is small, you can work this glass for a good length of time - the longer you work it, the darker it gets - unless you get it too hot - then the color can disappear, or turn a muddy brown. For best results, alternate between cool and warm - almost like you are striking it over and over again.

Rubino is best used sparingly - as a base it can go cloudy and somewhat dark. It’s perfect as a layering color - it encases well, and can be used as surface decoration. Any opaque pink, white, light purple, light blue, etc. will work well layered with Rubino.

Most batches of Rubino also tend to bleed a little - to take over the color they are layered with. This can actually be used to your advantage - as dots of Rubino over any opaque pink will melt and distort into really uniform shapes. I love doing this - it’s kind of my Zen of lampworking - watching pink dots melt into squares, hexagons, triangles, etc. See some of the beads below for an example of this.

Try and stay away from the Ivory shades - they will react with Rubino to form dark orange-ish brown shades. That can be a nasty surprise when you wanted pink and cream! Instead, try Silver Pink as your cream color.

As for most of the Coral batches - they look wonderful with Rubino as long as they aren’t melted together. Too much Rubino on Coral and you get brown mud.

Rubino reduces to a deep metallic sheen - try it with some bumps on clear or pale lavender - so pretty!

Vetrofond’s version of Rubino is slightly darker and more raspberry in tone.

Rising Star: ASK 009 Caramel Apple

ASK is a new brand of 104 coe glass that is made by Arrow Springs and Kugler. They have a variety of new colors, and this one, Caramel Apple, is my favorite so far. I’ve used it several times (see the beads below), and it’s a total dream to work with.

At first glance, this glass rod is kind of a golden tan color that, personally, looks a little blah. But introduce it to your flame and watch the color bloom. It’s both a striking and a reducing color - meaning that it does all kinds of fun things while you work it with different flame environments.

It melts like most opaque 104’s - soft and flowing, but not drippy. It does tend to form color striations - and they get more pronounced the longer you work the glass. Striking the glass as you go along yields a richer, deeper golden ochre color.

The real beauty of this glass comes out when it’s reduced. A medium reduction flame will deposit a pretty golden metallic sheen on the glass - and the less oxygen, the brighter the metallic. Also, the sheen will differ with how hot the glass is when you reduce it. You can reduce it while it’s molten to get a very bright silvery finish. I prefer the more golden tone, so I let my glass cool a bit before reducing.

I know I will be using this glass a lot more in the future - it’s just gorgeous!

For more tips on working this and other ASK colors, see the Arrow Springs ASK 104 page.

Tried & True: Effetre 219 Opaque Copper Green

When Copper Green glass first came out, I was a newbie beadmaker on the scene, and enamored by its light fairy-green-looking rod color. I immediately bought some, even though the metallic sheen on some of the rods scared me. I hadn’t been working glass long, and I had no experience with glass that was reactive at all.

Once I started working with it, though, and figured out its little nuances and favorite flame environments, Copper Green became one of my all-time favorite glass colors.

This glass thrives in my neutral, slightly oxodizing, small-ish flame. When used as a base, a greyish coppery patina forms almost immediately as the glass begins to cool, once the round base bead is shaped. It melts like most other 104 opaque colors, and you’ll find that it acts very similarly in the flame as other Effetre handmade colors from that time period. It’s easy to pull into stringers, and easy enough to encase, as long as you keep in mind the patina that tends to form when the glass cools.

Adding decoration to the plain Copper Green base can be a little tricky, because that metallic sheen can make it tough for your decoration to stick. Make sure to spot heat the base bead right before adding decoration - this burns off the metallic so that your stringer will stick to the bead. If you wait too long, the metallic patina will form again; timing is everything with this glass!

Reducing your base of copper green will intensifiy the patina - which is in no way super consistent. It can get splotchy, and tends to form a thicker layer around the holes of the bead. That can be fun to play with though - and is wonderful for organic beads.

When Copper Green is left bare and the patina is burned off, the resulting colors range from soft green to turquoise and everywhere in between. The most prevalent color (for me anyway) is a minty-fresh green that is almost good enough to eat.

Try encasing Copper Green in layers of transparent Dark Sage or Yellow-Green for some nice shades.

Copper Green is also a highly reactive color - just try using it with colors like Ivory, Opal Yellow, Opaque Purple (EDP) or any other reactive color, and watch fun things happen. Copper Green tends to even react with itself to form striations of color and metal - so be careful when layering if that’s not what you’re going for.

Copper Green comes in a couple of different variations - the normal kind, which is what I have the most experience with, and what is talked about above; the true Red Copper Green, which is a whole different animal, and which I have next to no experience in working with; and a kind of hybrid of the two, which can be tough to work with, because it blushes an odd coppery pink in the most unexpected places. Both of the other variations can be a lot of fun - especially for people who love making freeform organic beads. Personally, I tend to prefer colors which are only slightly weird.

Copper Green - slightly weird, but absolutely enchanting once you get used to it.