Gahhhhhh.  After over 2 years of not touching my lampwork torch I'm going to try and make beads again.  I'm expecting it to be a long and painful process of trying to re-learn everything it took me 7 or 8 years to learn in the first place.  Darn.

In the meantime, none of my passwords work, Etsy has changed pretty much everything about their check out system and I forget how to take and edit beads pictures.  Can I go home now?

Just in case anyone out there is listening, wish me luck and keep and eye out for an update in a week or two.  If nothing happens in that time, then just assume that I gave up.

Take care,
Carey

Ornate Lampwork Beads in a cascade of Neutrals

I had a custom request for a series of ornate shaped beads in various neutrals and I really need to keep track of the various glasses I used so I decided to put it in a post (starting from the left): Effetre Oliva Nera encased in clear, Effetre Straw Yellow encased in Double Helix Aurae, CIM Seashell with white dots, Effetre Mocha, Effetre Sage Green (etched), Lauscha Caramello (etched)

Starting from the 2nd bead from the left:  CIM Khaki, CIM Cottontail encased in CIM Chateau, Effetre Fossil, Effetre Straw Yellow, CIM Cookie Dough (etched), CIM Antique Lace.

And finally starting from the 5th bead from the left:  Effetre light Ivory (etched), and CIM Cottontail over clear.

CIM Mink, CIM Maple, and Effetre Antique Green

What's not to love about a rich, dark honey amber mixed with pastel turquoise and green. These colours look great on everyone and go with pretty much everything.  I could make them over and over (and have made them quite a few times).

This set is made with three CIM colours.  The warm honey brown comes from CIM Maple and CIM Mink and the pastel green is CIM Sprout.  The lovely soft turquoise is Effetre Antique Green.  I'm not sure why it's called green because even though it is definitely a turquoise colour, I read it a little more blue than green but either way it's a beautiful colour.

A few comments on CIM Maple.  This is a very interesting glass.  It is a dark clear transparent amber in rod form but goes kind of milky or opalescent when melted.  It is very stiff but still very easy to work with and the final result goes back to a very transparent amber.

Also some nice silver line reactions between the Antique Green and Maple.  It's hard to see in the pictures but if you look closely at the green bead near the front in the first picture, you can just make out sparkly bits of silver around the blue dots.  Very pretty in person.

Transparent Purple Effetre Ink Blue and CIM Ink Blot

I'm in a bit of a transparent purple mood.  Something about very dark transparent colours layered with tons and tons of clear glass just seems to have a very clean, elegant look.  I'm also experimenting a little with sizes and shapes and working on my fine stringer.  Not as good as I'd like to be yet but not horrible either.  This set is made with Effetre Ink Blue which is the brighter purple and CIM Ink Blot which is the darker, slightly bluish purple.  Both are lovely glasses and very easy to work with.  

This set is made with Effetre Ink Blue transparent, Effetre Medium Yellow Green and CIM Dirty Martini.  The encased dot beads turned out pretty nice and the stringer designs need a little more work but aren't bad.  I've layered the transparent purple 2 or 3 times from the bottom of some of the beads to get a gradient effect which I really like ( you can see it much better on the left most bead in the below picture).

CIM Dirty Martini and Effetre Dark Grey

I love CIM Dirty Martini.  In fact, if I had to chose, I would say that it was my favourite glass colour.  I was worried for a little while that it might go out of production because Creation is Messy (CIM) was making a lot of similar greens in limited edition colours.  I assumed that they were trying to make Dirty Martini and not quite getting it but thankfully it is still a regular edition colour.  It is a pale, very grey toned green.  What I would call celadon and it goes fabulously with grey and white and pretty much any other colour you can name.

My camera didn't really like these colours, I guess because they're so neutral.  In person, the Dirty Martini is greener than showing in the pictures but other than whiting out the background, I've chosen to do very few adjustments to photos just to save time and frustration (the adjustments never seem to come out the way I want).

This set of beads is made with CIM Dirty Martini (surpise!), Effetre Dark Grey pastel, Effetre Dark Grey transparent, Vetrofond Crystal Green, and Effetre White.

Pretty in Pink and Orange CIM Tiger Lily and Effetre Light Pink Pastel

It is sooo cold here in Toronto.  I know it's winter but wow this is really really cold.  This set of beads was intended to help fight the winter blahs.  A gorgeous bright vivid orange from Creation is Messy called Tiger Lily.  This is a beautiful orange.  Not too red, not too blue, clean with no streaking and very easy to melt.  Love it.  It also plays really nicely with the other colours which include CIM Oyster Mushroom, Effetre Light Pink Pastel, Sage Green and Pale Blue transparent.

Well, that took longer than expected

I'm finally back to the torch and have a few new bead sets that I'll be listing tonight.  I'm not really sure how my 3 months away turned into more than 9 months of missing in action.  I just couldn't seem to work up the interest in going back to the torch which is a problem since I have tons and tons of glass that needs to be used up.  Hopefully, I'll be able to do a bit more regular work and even post to my blog (this here one) once in awhile.

One of the things I've decided to do is simplify as much as possible.  I'm only taking 3 pictures of each bead set and then the only adjustments that I'm making are to white out the background (grey dingy backgrounds just drive me nuts).  As per the above picture, I think it looks pretty nice and it lets the beads and their colours stand out a lot more. 

This set was made with Effetre Ivory, Sage Green, Sandstone, and Dark Brown trans and CIM Adamantium, Double Helix Khaos and TAG Fire Lotus.  Lots of rich earthy colours for a nice tribal effect with hints of silvery swirls.

I'm off to Etsy to list beads now and I'll be back soon to update on glasses and colours.