Coming Soon: CiM Cranberry Pink

Oh. My. God.  CiM is coming out with a new color, and it looks so pretty!  I haven’t gotten any yet - it’s still in the testing phase. I can’t tell by the picture whether this will be a transparent, translucent or opaque color.  I have heard on the forums by one vendor that this color might have a high learning curve - meaning it might take some doing to get this color to perform how you want it to. That’s totally fine with me - as long as it’s pink!

Check out the CiM page on this color, and what they are saying about it over at Lampwork, etc.

On a totally different subject - I haven’t posted much lately because I have been super busy getting ready to move!  Yep, we bought a new house, so I will be moving later this month.  Hopefully after the holidays I will get back to much more frequent posting.  Until then - have a colorful holiday!

Vetrofond must love orange….

So Vetrofond, our favorite Odd Lot glass maker, has come out with yet another huge assortment of weird colors for us to try out.  This is what…the fifth batch?  I do applaud them for listening to their customers and for really trying to put out new and inventive glass for us. 

But enough with the orange filigrana, please!!  I mean, have you SEEN the latest batch of odds?  Almost all oranges and greens.  And ALL filigrana - a dark color covered in a contrasting lighter color, for a marbled look.

I say that with love and hope that Vetrofond will soon hear me and come out with some great new opaque purples and pinks.  Actual pinks.  Not faded out pale translucent pinks. Stellar purples. Not greyed out, reactive purples.

It’s true that Vetrofond is likely catering to those beadmakers who really love reactive glass - who adore making organic beads and messing with different metallic reactions.  I guess I am just one of those rare glass-lovers that love plain, pure, stable colors that I can combine and layer without reactions.

Don’t get me wrong - I do love reactions, sometimes.  But not with every color. 

We have enough of those now, I think.  Double Helix, Vetrofond, ASK, Lauscha and other makers are really pumping out the silver based, filigrana, reactive, organic and weird. It’s fun to experiment with them - to a point.

One other thing - if you’ve been buying all this new glass, you’ve probably realized by now that the paddle pics shown on the vendors web sites do not often relate to the real thing when you personally melt the glass.  I’ve still not been able to get that sweet marbly pink and cream from Sweet Strawberry. Just a rusty, tomato red. Pink #3 Pastel was nothing but almost white for me. Orange Punch never looked like the paddle pic - it stayed a translucent red, no matter what I did.  And the gorgeous Poppy?  Hard to turn pink, like the paddle - mostly a luscious…..yep, you guessed it……orange.  I am afraid to buy the brand new Jupiter - it looks so yummy in the paddle, but who knows if I will actually get that color for reals.

So…. Vetrofond?  Please?  A deep, vivid opaque purple. A bright opaque pink. A sweet opaque apricot or peach.  Pretty please.  And no more orange. For the love of GOD no more orange.

Tried & True: Effetre 081 Dark Lavender

Ahhh the first color I fell in love with way back when. I was messing around with 081 and its sister 221 Pale Lavender Opaque even before I was messing with pink glass.

Dark Lavender 081 is a desperately cool color - and it does magic, too! The color came out around the same time I started making beads - and at first glance didn’t look that much different than the regular 080 Pale Lavender Transparent or the totally mis-named 082 Lavender Blue (it’s pink. I swear.).

In general, 081 is significantly more saturated than the other two colors - a deep, rich lavender that will enhance any color you layer it over.

The first thing you should know about 081 is that it turns pale blue under fluorescent lighting. Just like any other lavender in any of the glass lines that I know if. There’s something weird about lavender glass that causes that reaction - I notice it happens with lavender beads of any kind - seeds, Czech, you name it. If it’s lavender, and it’s glass, it will do this weird washed out blue thing under fluorescents. But under incandescent lighting, the lavender color really pops.

The second thing you want to keep in mind about this glass is that batch matters. With this color you really want clarity - and there are some batches of this color out there that are so scratched up and scummy, that you’ll want to pull your hair out. Do yourself a huge favor and try to find a way to hand-pick the rods, or buy from a vendor you really trust. Because if you get a crappy batch of this color, the rods will scum up and bubble like the worst of the aquas - and we all know how bad those can be. Same goes with the pale 080 version of this color.

Once you get the right rod of Dark Lavender, you can create the most gorgeous, varied purples with it. It’s a gorgeous color on its own, but really can make any shade of purple in the palette pop right out. Encase Dark Amethyst in this color and watch the brown overtones just disappear. Ahhhh purple. Encase Pale Lavender in Dark Lavender for a springy pale treat. Do the same with Pastel Ink Blue and you have a subtle lilac shade.

081 is the perfect stiffness for sculpturing and for encasing - and it works well with most every other color without reactions or striking woes. Encase stripes with this and they will have an ethereal quality to them.

081 isn’t a rare color anymore - most every vendor who carries Effetre has it at a decent price point - and some even give it away as a gift when you order a certain amount of glass. Just make sure you’re getting the rods that aren’t scratched and scummy. There’s nothing worse than gorgeous but unusable glass. And now, on to the eye-candy!

Girl’s Day Out

So I had some serious cabin fever today.  Since I am doing a project for Step By Step Beads, and have a very limited amount of time to get some supplies, I decided to take a little trip to Shipwreck Beads.  I love living in Washington, because not only am I within driving distance of half a dozen glass manufacturers and dealers, I am also only a short 1 1/2 hours away from one of the largest bead stores ever. Shipwreck mostly does mail order and online sales, but they also have a storefront in Lacey.  Okay, make that a……warehouse. Because OMG……it’s huge!

I’d never been there before today, and let me just say this:  It’s a damn good thing they have a little deli/cafe thingie in the middle of the store, because I needed to keep my blood sugar up and myself caffeinated for this place. I’ve never seen a bead store this gigantic. I literally had issues with my eyes going wiggy after about 30 minutes in there. The sheer amount of color and sparkle will most likely cause Sensory!Overload! for anyone who is a creative soul.

As for selection - it’s pretty good, as you may imagine.  I mean, after all, did I mention the size of the building?  I was a little surprised by the total lack of selection of decent findings there - unfortunately.  Most of what they had was base metal, and what they did have of good metal was really generic. But the rest of the merchandise made up for that lack.

They have an amazing amount of Czech glass beads - it seemed like that pretty much took up half the store.  any size/color/finish you can imagine in Czech - it’s there.  I had to yank my eyes away from the gorgeous firepolished stuff after I picked out a couple things I needed.

Another quarter of the store seemed to be taken up by giant bins of bagged generic Indian glass beads - which was kind of off-putting for me.  I am a glass bead snob - I don’t apologize for it.  :D  Which brings us to the gi-normous aisle of Chinese lampwork beads….ahh well.  Didn’t see any artist-made lampwork, but I wasn’t expecting to, since they are a high-volume online and mail order seller mostly. I usually only see the handmade stuff in smaller bead stores. 

One nice thing is that they had a decent selection of both Swarovski and Preciosa brand crystal beads, in a bunch of different shapes and colors.  Two whole aisles of crystals - I spent a lot of time in that section. It literally caused me pain to have to leave that area without buying a whole lot more than I did. In a store like that, you need to stay on track or you’re sunk.  Hence the name.

I was desperate for more Bali/Thai sterling beads, but alas, there were almost none to be found there.  They did have some sterling, but it was mostly unidentifiable and pretty generic.  They did have a few nice toggle clasps, but they were really expensive. Most of the sterling was - but that’s no surprise in this economy.

As for gemstones - yep, they have em.  Hanging all over one of the walls and taking up a couple of aisles of their own.  I had to refrain, but they had some really great choices.  I drooled over all of them and had to walk away.  Sniff.  They also had a decent selection of books, stringing materials, bead storage and tools.

That’s all I can honestly remember, because it’s all becoming a blur of color now that I am home with my modest purchase of $33.77.  I am sure Shipwreck has way more than I have mentioned here…you’ll just have to take a trip there and check it out.  Try not to have a time limit or a….um….budget.