Pantone Color Trends - little video snippet

This is super cool! Pantone expert talks about how colors are chosen for trends in the years to come.

I love Pantone, and I totally covet the job this woman has.

My Color Wish List

It's the holiday season, and I only want one thing this year. More glass colors!! There are some definite holes in the 104 coe glass color palette....so here's hoping that a glass manufacturer, somewhere, is watching and taking notes. Here are my top 10 wishes for the year!

1. A deep, non-reactive opaque magenta. I realize glass makers may not be able to get this saturated, but anything approaching this delicious color would be hugely appreciated. The closest they have gotten thus far are greyed out purples.

2. A dense, non-reactive vivid opaque purple. Same goes for this color when it comes to saturation. The closest they have ever gotten to a nice, rich purple is the scary Evil Devitrifying Purple, which is...well... scary. I would like one that is bluer than that, and which does not produce the chalky devitrification, especially when encased.

3. A sweet, dense, opaque watermelon. Something medium in hue, and somewhere between coral and pink. Maybe this would be the true coral shade that does not turn orange or grey. Again, non-reactive.

4. A true medium transparent barbie pink. Glass makers have been great at producing lighter, more saturated pinks this past year or two, but they have not been able to get a shade that's truely medium pink. The best way to get this pink is still to layer Rubino with different opaques and transparents.

5. Deep, rich, opaque chocolate brown. The browns in the 104 coe palette either have way too much red in them, or they are striking colors which can react or grey out, such as Lauscha Cocoa. We need a decent true brown that's nice and vivid.

6. Anything remotely close to an opaque medium to dark pink. Now, there's lots of glass out there *named* dark pink. But it's just not dark enough. most of the pink opaque shades are very light. We do have the odd lots of 256 Dark Pink Effetre, but they are all very light. I would love a darker, more saturated version.

7. A subtle dark transparent tobacco that is stable. The closest we have is Czech Lt. Smoke Topaz which is quite unstable and has cracking issues when paired with other glass, and is even really hard to find.

8. A subtle dark transparent khaki. This would be a fantastic neutral to introduce to the 104 coe line - it goes with everything. We have lighter versions - olive greens and kelp shades, but I would like a really dark one.

9. A vivid transparent capri blue. Think Swarovski for this color - they have a wonderful bicone crystal bead in this shade that I have never been able to match with glass. An intense transparent of this shade would just be blissful.

10. A soft, sweet opaque peach - one that does not react, and is saturated enough to stand on its own as a base. We have lots of fleshtones in the 104 coe line, but nothing saturated enough to be called peach - I would like this spring peach very much.

Give me any one of these shades this year and I will be a very happy beadmaker. :)

I think the best chance we have of seeing new, pure glass colors (ones that aren't silver based or reactive odd lots) would be from Creation is Messy. They've been wonderful about listening to us beadmakers about what we would like to see. They even have a place where we can suggest colors for them to try and make. I wish Effetre or Vetrofond had that!

New Home!

Hi everyone - welcome to the Coloraddiction Blog's new home here on Blogger. I decided to move over from Wordpress because I like Blogger's capabilities more, and because I have been having technical issues over there for awhile.

So pardon the dust while things get settled. I have manually imported all the posts from the Wordpress blog over to here - but please be aware of a couple of things. First, all the posts have the wrong dates on them - I imported them yesterday and today, so they all say December 17th or 18th. Most of these posts have been written over the last year. Second, there's no way to import the comments made on those old posts, so if you did comment on a post, I am so sorry. Please post your comments again if you like.

I will also be updating the links and resources throughout the next couple of days.

We do have a very detailed Glossary and a Resources page for beadmakers over at the Coloraddiction.com main site, though, so that can tide you over 'til we are finished here.

Anyway - if you have any suggestions, please feel free to comment! Thanks so much! :)

I Must Confess

I love color trends!! You know the ones I mean - the seasonal release of color swatches wayyyy in advance by trendsetting organizations like Pantone and CIFF. I don't stick to those colors exactly when I look for beadmaking inspiration, but I love to look and fantasize about color combinations.

Pantone's Spring 2009 report is out, and I must say - I am kind of underwhelmed. That's not a huge surprise, though - I get more excited by fall and winter color selections. Spring's selection of colors is kind of muted - a soft, understated and even somewhat gloomy. With the exception of the a couple of colors, which are kind of strange in the mix.

Left to right - Fuchsia Red, Salmon Rose, Rose-Dust, Lavender, Slate Grey, Lucite Green, Vibrant Green, Dark Citron, Super Lemon.



I do love that bright magenta shade called Fuchsia Red. I've been longing for a shade like that in an opaque glass....wouldn't that be gorgeous? Someday some glass company is going to come out with that color and I am going to buy ALL of it. :)

And then there's Super Lemon. You know, I have always been of the mind that no matter what the color is, there's always a place for it somewhere. LOL I might have to change my mind about that here, though. Super Lemon is just.....not my cup of tea. The acidic but almost sickly nature of that color just does not fit anywhere for me. Especially not in a spring color palette. But, hey, color is a subjective thing, and I am sure there are lots of people out there who love it.

I do like the blues and greens for the 2009 Spring season.....they seem to go well together, and give a kind of calm, breezy feeling that goes well with Spring.



The Salmon Rose color is nice - maybe a bit too dark for me....but it looks exactly like Reichenbach's Opal Raspberry 104 glass, and that's really pretty stuff.



Not so sure about the Rose Dust shade - that kind of color needs a buddy, it's so faded. Pair it with the Slate Gray or the Lucite Green and I'm on board.

I would say that most of the colors in the Spring palette do have a glass counterpart in the 104 line - and if they don't, they can be layered to achieve the right color. However, because the palette isn't as exciting to me as past Spring palettes, I probably won't be matching them up much this year.

Now, the Lenzing Color Trend for spring/summer 2009 is a little better - especially in the women's wear section. The Pantone main colors are there, but they have selected a bunch more to kind of fill out the palette, making it a bit more spring-like and cheerful. The addition of some coral shades as well as some lovely denim and cornflower blues add happiness to the palette. Yum. :)

Of course, there's something really weird about the fact that these trendy sites are coming up with color/fashion selections so far in advance. They even have some of 2010 planned out. Just makes me wonder - who gets to pick out trendsetting colors? What makes them pick certain shades? It does seem that the rest of the fashion and home interior industries do follow along with these trends...and it is kind of fun to wonder - why? Yes, there's some jealousy showing...I would adore being one of the people who gets to pick colors for the upcoming seasons. What an amazing job that would be.

At any rate - color trends are fun to follow. They don't limit me, but they do give me ideas. I just may be breaking out the soft blues and greens a bit early this year. :)

There is no secret ingredient....

So I have been asking around the lampwork community what kind of tutorials people might be looking for from me for my Coloraddiction site. Over on Lampwork, Etc. a bunch of people have been suggesting that I do a tutorial on how I come up with color combinations.

Well....that's a tough one. You see - I have no actual method I use when picking out colors to go together.

Color to me is all about how I feel. When I see a particular color combination, it evokes a feeling. When that feeling is joyful, I usually keep those colors in mind for making beads.

I am always on the lookout for beautiful and striking color combinations. It seems that no matter where I go or what I am doing, I am constantly aware of color. It fills my whole life. So maybe that's why putting together combinations seems so easy for me.

I see color *everywhere*. I'll even be driving down the road, looking at a green car and thinking - hey, I have that color of glass! It's Effetre Dark Sage Green!!

But there are a few places I will look when I am specifically in need of inspiration.

I think one of my favorite places to look for color is in the yarn section of a fabric store. Have you ever walked into one of those places and just frozen in blissful admiration? It's almost overwhelming. I will often take a pad of paper in with me to write down the combinations that move me. Of course, that's often dangerous because I rarely leave without buying some yarn. :)

I also love to walk into clothing stores around the end of summer when they are beginning to show their new fall clothing lines - many stores have their displays color-coordinated, and I get a lot of inspiration from that.

An easy place to look for color inspiration of course is right online. I am easily inspired by combinations used in web graphics or desktop themes. Have you seen the amazing artwork by digital and fractal artists? Oh, my goodness - the combinations there are ubelievable.

It's also fun to just go into your favorite graphic program and just mess with colors until it looks good. ColourLovers, a website I have blogged about before, is really fun to play around with for inspiration. Lately, though, it's been crashing my Internet Explorer, so I am not on there very often anymore.

Of course, you can pick out all the lovely combinations in the world, but the hard part is translating that into a bead set. Making beads is not like painting - you have to take into consideration that glass colors have a chemical make-up. Sometimes you can mix them and layer them to get the color you're looking for, but sometimes you can't.

It does take some experimentation sometimes to find out whether the glass colors you *think* will look together actually will. However, often the glass colors you put together will react and make a whole new combination you never even thought of.

So the most common way for me to create a combination is to just pull glass rods from my stash and see what happens. There's no secret ingredient there - no real method to the madness. Just the thrill of looking at color - that's what really drives my muse. :)

CiM Testing: Evil Queen and Count von Count

New colors - yey! I took some time out from working on the Coloraddiction website (new tutorial there this morning by the way) to test some new Creation is Messy colors.

So. Much. Fun!

The first color I tried my hand at was the pretty shade of violet they are calling Evil Queen. Not quite sure why they called it evil - I am pretty sure this is the most well-behaved CiM color I have run into lately - and definitely the most well behaved violet shade!

This color is slightly stiffer than other 104 COE opaques - just like most of the CiM colors are. And this is nice, because encasing it is easier.

Evil Queen in rod form looks a bit like Vetrofond's Dark Violet - a nice, solid purple shade that isn't quite as dense as the Effetre cousins are. The nice thing about this color though is that it doesn't have nearly the reactive tendencies that most other 104 violets have. It doesn't bleed, suck other color, have any silver reduction patina, and keeps its pretty color.

When it is layered, it has the slightest tendency to go translucent, kind of like Bullseye, but that mostly goes away after working it for awhile. You can also get this color really hot without it scumming or boiling.

Using Evil Queen as a base, I began encasing it with Count von Count - the other new color I have for this set.

Mkay. What the heck is up with the name of this color? All it conjurs up for me in my mind's eye is that count from Sesame Street. Was he purple? I don't remember. LOL

Anyway. This color is almost completely identical to Effetre's 081 Dark Lavender. Most people probably won't be able to tell the difference. It works up just pretty much the same.

It's a gorgeous color - a deep, color shifting lavender that sparkles like all get out. Using it over Evil Queen created a stunning orchid shade that knocked my socks clean off.

Here, you can see these colors paired with Effetre's Dark Red Brown and Vetrofond's Crystal Clear.



And here is Evil Queen with some purples and Leaky Pen.

Announcing...

Announcing the new collaboration between Kimberly Affleck and myself - the Coloraddiction website! This will be the main version of Coloraddiction, while this Coloraddiction Blog will remain the site's free info blog/color testing place.

It's still a work in progress, and Kim hasn't added her tutorials yet, but she is working on it. We're both really excited about this - we'll be offering tutorials for sale and for free to beadmakers who are beginners, novices and intermediates. It contains a large glossary (which is still being written), some freebies and my paid tutorial so far. I'll be working on the site in the coming days to get it finished, and we'll both be completing more tutorials in the coming weeks and months.

Eeek - here goes!

CiM Color Testing: A few colors!

So I've been asked to test 104 coe soft glass colors for the new-ish company Creation is Messy - and I've been doing that behind the scenes and unofficially for awhile now. My heart sang when I got to do some official testing for them - I love to see new colors and find out what makes them tick! This post is the first installment of a series devoted to CiM colors.

In this first post, I will give some impressions of brand new and semi-new colors, and include pics of some of my recent sets made with CiM as well as other brands. Keep in mind that these impressions are really limited - some of these colors I have only used a couple of times. I will post more in depth when I have more experience with them.

First off, I will start with some notes about the Pink Champagne (see my earlier post about it).

Kathy of CiM asked me this: "Did you feel like the batch of Pink Champagne that you bought at the Gathering was significantly different than the one I sent you samples of? The hue was slightly different in rod form but I felt like it worked out to be pretty close to the same. I’ve been working on tightening up our hue benchmarking / quality control system so checking in to see if I am succeeding or not . . ."

Here are my thoughts:

The rods I bought at the Gathering are pretty close to the ones she sent. I am getting consistent color with all the rods, so I don't think there's a problem there. I do think that glass in particular, as well as the other glasses that have amounts of lavender in them, does have a very strong reaction to lighting environments. I think that may be what's messing everyone up. :) I see this happen with colors in the Effetre line as well - 082, 081 and 080 specifically have varying amounts of lavender, and therefore react to light. They can all range from very vivid lavender to washed out pale blue to soft, warm pink and all variations in between. That's just the nature of whatever metals they use in lavender glass. It happens with the Bullseye neo-lavenders as well. I may do a blog post on the variations of lavender across the 104 lines. When I get a free moment - lol!

More colors:

Here are the pics and the impressions - I work on a minor burner with natural gas and an oxy concentrator. I work relatively small and cool.

This is the set with Pink Champagne over Effetre 256 Odd Raspberry (this glass is impossible to find - you can use regular 256 which is slightly lighter), paired with Vetrofond Yellow Ocher and Vetrofond Crystal Clear. Pink Champagne is a nicely stiff glass, although not quite as stiff as some others in the CiM line. It didn't scum at all - any bubbles that did appear burned off really quickly. The glass has a wonderful consistency - and worked well with the Effetre.


I love the color shifting properties - it gives this color an ethereal quality. CiM Pink Champagne makes unbelievably gorgeous spacers and works really, really well as a base. There are no reactions as far as I can see with other glass - it doesn't bleed, suck up other colors or have any metallic reactions that I saw. It's just a clean, balanced transparent medium shade that shifts in different lighting environments.

This is the CiM Pumpkin with Vetrofond Crystal Clear, paired with Effetre 256 Odd Raspberry, Vetrofond Rubino and Effetre 081 Dark Lavender.


Pumpkin is also a straightforward glass in my view, relatively soft in consistency, and has very few reactions from what I could see. It paired nicely with the other colors. It basically has similar properties to most other 104 "special" orange/red/yellow colors - turns dark orange in the flame, likes a cooler environment and has slight color striations on occasion.


Slight darker lines appeared when I melted the encased Rubino stringer on some of the Pumpkin bases - but I think that was due to the dark wine of the Rubino on top of the orange, rather than any reaction. I love this color - it's a deep yellow orange that's very vivid and strong, and doesn't seem to burn out at all.


This set is Dirty Martini with Leaky Pen and bits of Vetrofond Crystal Clear- and it's etched. Hubba hubba. Let me tell you - this Dirty Martini made my heart skip a beat. It's. So. Pretty. Leaky Pen and Dirty Martini were made for eachother....they make amazing love. Yey! Okay - on to the real information.


I fully expected Dirty Martini to have some type of metallic reaction like most other 104 line shades of pale blue/turquoise/green. But it didn't really - and I LOVE that. The grey-ish quality of the rods brighten up just a bit when they're melted - and the result is a pearly minty grey/green/blue shade that made my heart sing.


The glass is soft and easy to work, didn't devit like I expected, and etched so well that I almost died. The color does striate a little - especially when you melt in color on top of it. Little pale lines will form around the Leaky Pen encased stringer. It's a balanced color - no bleeding/sucking (lol). It is absolutely the perfect complement to the dark vividness of the Leaky Pen.











The Dirty Martini/Leaky Pen combo is tested even further by adding it to Heffalump and Simply Berry Unique with a splash of Vetrofond Crystal Clear. Heffalump and Simply Berry are another match made in heaven!

The nice thing about Heffalump is that it doesn't burn out like the Effetre 221 Pale Lavender tends to - it's a bit darker and more dense. It's a wonderful pale complement to the depth of the Simply Berry shades. Simply Berry needed this cool lavender - because putting Simply Berry over any other purple just wasn't doing it for me.

Simply Berry Unique (the light version) just pops, and Heffalump is just the right pale color to give it that extra ooomph. Heffalump color striates slightly like the Dirty Martini, and is the same consistency. Heffalump flirts with devit, but is really easy to burn off. There is a tendency for it to turn translucent when melted into a transparent color - you can see this in the dot bead third from the right in the pic. But it's not too bad.

Of course Simply Berry Unique is one of my very favorite transparent purples - it's heaven in a glass rod. I've reviewed it for CiM once before, and my impressions of it are still the same.

I'm really impressed so far with the quality of the CiM glass I have tested. I'm one who loves glass that doesn't react, devit, scum, bleed or suck up other colors - the CiM glass colors I have used are wonderful for making crisp, clean geometric and floral beads. More to come!

Color Comparisons: Transparent Pinks

Those who know me, know that I am absolutely ga-ga for pink glass. Pink anything, really. I'm addicted to pinks more than I am addicted to any color, and that's saying something!! So when a few new pink shades came out recently, I took some time out to test them and get some first impressions, and to compare them to some of the old standbys. (Standbyes? Standby's? Standbies?) I haven't had much time to do any in depth testing, but I have melted the new colors enough to Fall In Love.

The colors I will be looking at in this post are all transparent pink shades in the medium to very light variations. They are: CiM 915 Pink Champagne, Effetre 067 Rose Quartz, Effetre 082 Lavender Blue (aka Rosatto), Effetre 068 Pink and Effetre 082-A Amber Rose Odd.

You can see the color differences in this Pink Wheel. While I tried really hard to get the colors right in the image, please note that colors may not appear exact on every monitor. And the palest color, Rose Quartz, appears really washed out here.


So first, I want to talk about the new Effetre Rose Quartz. This came out a couple of months ago, when Mike Frantz was going to send it back until someone talked him out of it. (Rumor of course!) I think he just thought it was a lighter version of Effetre's regular transparent pink - also shown in the wheel.

Not true! Rose Quartz and Pink are very different in my view. Effetre 068 Pink is much peachier in comparison. Rose Quartz is a very cool, pale baby pink. I would classify it as a tint - it's so light. The rods look almost clear unless you look at the ends - that's where you see the most color. Rose Quartz has replaced 082 Rosatto for me as a layering pale pink - for one very big reason. More on that later. RQ makes wonderful layering over Rubino and the various shades of opaque pink. I've been using it a lot these past few weeks. It's clarity is nice, it's got a medium amount of stiffness, and it encases well. Plus - it's baby freakin' pink!!

068 Effetre Pink is the classic oldie of this bunch - it's been around forever. However, I rarely use it these days, because it just isn't pink to me. It's peach - granted, a pale, cool peach. Vetrofond came out with its version of Pink a few years ago, and I liked it because it was slightly less peach. I didn't have any to compare for this post though, because I had been using 082 Rosatto for so long.

082 Rosatto was my favorite for a long time, when it came to transparent pinks. It's official name, Lavender Blue, is really weird, since it's not blue at all. It does, however, shine a tiny bit lavender-y when under fluorescent lights. This is why I was so happy when Rose Quartz came out.

But Rosatto is a really pretty color - slightly darker and more lavender than RQ, and great for layering as well. It's perfect for really berry-shaded purples and pinks in layering. But for true pink, I love the RQ.

I threw Amber Rose into this party just so you could see another medium shade - this one much peachier and warmer than pink. In fact, I wouldn't really call this pink at all - but a dirty pinkish amber color. This color is highly sought after, because of its rarity. It's not made anymore, but if you can find it, it's well worth the money. The color is strikingly strange, and makes really gorgeous organic bead bases. I'm on my last rod, and I have no clue what I am going to do with it. Maybe hoard it forever!

Last but not least is the brand new CIM color Pink Champagne. Oh, my freaking YUM. This color is the darkest of the bunch, and delightfully weird. I would classify it as a medium orchid pink with lavender undertones. By itself, it makes absolutely stunning spacers. As a layering color, it's perfect! It also makes the most gorgeous floral petals when combined with opaque Dark Raspberry Pink (also a rare odd that I am quickly running out of!).

Pink Champagne reminds me a lot of Rosatto, except darker and more "sparkly". Seriously, CIM's quality is really impressing me. This color of theirs has gorgeous clarity, a nice stiff consistency (but not Lauscha-stiff) and doesn't bubble or scum like most transparents. It is a tiny bit more sensitive to temperature change, and likes a hot flame emvironment, as far as I can see. And the color? Off the charts gorgeous. The 104 coe color line has a distinct lack of medium transparent pinks - and this color goes a long way towards filling that gap.

In this bead I started with Opaque Dark Raspberry Pink, encased it in Pink Champagne, then decorated it with clear scrolls.

So the new pinks - Pink Champagne and Rose Quartz - are right on the money as far as I am concerned. I sure hope both glass manufacturers keep them in the palette!

Tried & True: Effetre 232 Light Turquoise

Turquoise seems to be a staple color for many glass beadmakers. It's definitely one for me too, but perhaps not in the same way as many of my contemporaries.

I have a confession - and it may not come as much of a surprise to those who've seen lots of my beads. I know very little about working with metals in beadmaking. I've seen it done everywhere - and I know the simple basics - but I personally have never used any metals in making my beads, other than what's contained in the glass I use. **hangs head in shame**.

Where am I going with this? Well, as many veteran beadmakers know, metal foils and leaves work really well with the several glass colors in the green/turquoise/blue range. There's lots of info on that in places all over the web, but you're not going to see it here. Neener neener!

Seriously, I love Turquoise (specifically the light version) for an entirely different spectrum of reasons.

Light Turquoise opaque glass is probably one of the first colors I picked up when learning how to make beads. It's pretty and quirky at the same time. It's versatile and has some really interesting reactive qualities, even before you add any metals to it.

The first thing you might notice when melting a rod of Light Tuquoise is that it tends to be a bit shocky. Not overly so, but enough to where you want to introduce it to the flame slower than usual, to avoid flying shards of glass breaking away from the tip. Maybe even heat the end of your rod in the kiln or on a hot plate just to make sure.

The glass is nice and soft without being soupy, and cools neither slowly or quickly. Just your basic opaque in that manner. After you heat it up, it goes a bit greener than the rod until it cools. You may also notice a bit of color striation and even a bit of silvering or greying at the holes when it's allowed to cool. The more fuel in your flame, the more this glass will grey - this is normal for this glass because of the metals it contains. Once the glass cools, it will return to the same color as the rod, with a little bit of discoloration in places. You can easily remove the discoloration with some acid etch or even toilet bowl cleaner. (use either with caution, please!)

As a base, this color is true and lovely. Shown here with layers of red flowers - you can see the color doesn't bleed or suck up most colors it's used with.





Here you can see some of the color striation on these cubes, where Lt Turquoise was used as a plain base and decorated with bright green and purple raised stringers. Sometimes these striations can be mistaken for cracks in photos, so you might want to make sure to tell your customers if you're selling the beads you make.

The true bliss of this color for me is its layering capability. It layers wonderfully with many, many shades of blue, green, teal and aqua - so much so that I use it almost exclusively as a base layer for most of the transparents in the same color wheel section.





Turquoise looks delicious with brown, and is seen here as a base layer for Pale Aqua transparent glass, giving off a nice robin's egg blue effect. This color combo is really popular for me, and I adore doing it.

When you melt encased brown stringer on to the Turquoise, you are awarded with a nice organic look when the Turquoise darkens a bit.









Of course, there's nothing better than bright aquas and vivid greens - and you can pair them by using turquoise as the base. Layering some of the more yellow based greens over Turquoise really brightens them up almost to a neon look.













Additionally, different colors will give totally different looks - you can't see the turquoise here because it's layered under the Teal - Both Light and Dark Teal transparent glasses look great over Turquoise.

Not to mention the newer and even more beautiful CIM Leaky Pen, shown below over Light Turquoise.

I'm so glad this is one of Effetre's basic production colors, because it's one that will remain in my arsenal forever.

Rising Star: CiM 618 Simply Berry & 618-1 Simply Berry Unique

When it comes to introducing new colors into the soft glass palette, CiM has really been impressing me lately. Simply Berry, and it's little sister Simply Berry Unique, was CiM's answer to a request by beadmakers for a transparent magenta shade. Now, when you look at this color in rod form and melted into swatches and spacers, you probably don't see much of a resemblance to the color magenta. Neither do I. But that doesn't mean I don't like it very, very much!

At first glance, the one rod of the original Simply Berry that I had acquired to test appeared to be so much like Effetre's 042 Medium Amethyst that I had a hard time telling the difference between the two.

A preliminery melt however told me that the CiM version was stiffer and had slightly less of a tendency to go a dull shade of burgundy brown-ish when melted into spacers. I still wasn't all that thrilled though, and set the color aside, after telling Kathy of CiM my impression of it.







Later on, I discovered that CiM was releasing another version of this color - Simply Berry Unique (a lighter version and later a darker version, numbered 1 and 2 respectively). I was intrigued enough to check out the color again - and to ask what the deal was with the new Uniques coming out for some of the CiM colors, including Simply Berry. Kathy had this to say about Uniques in general, and Simply Berry in specific, in some email exchanges we had.

"...I don't keep stock on Uniques as they are usually just mismelts (Simply Berry that melted too light or too dark)."

"...What you said about Simply Berry Unique is fascinating because it is the same formula as Simply Berry. The melt just happened to come out that way"

That's pretty interesting insight into how glass is made at CiM - and how certain colors can really come out differently in each batch. It's worth noting that if you find a color you really love, and it's not a production color that will be available forever, buy as much of it as you can.

Simply Berry in its original form worked out really nicely as a layering color - a pretty, slightly less brown/pink than the Effetre Amethyst. You can see how I have used it and the Unique version together in this bead set, and how layering the two adds depth and clarity to the overall purple shade.

Simply Berry Unique (the light version, number 618-1) is an entirely different animal. Even though CiM calls it just a batch mistake, I have to say that it is my favorite glass mistake EVER. Yes, I even like it better than the Streaky Pink debacle. Oh, yes. People might not believe me - because of the huge deal I made over pink a few years ago. But I am totally over that. LOL Love is fickle - and I am now in love with Simply Berry Unique.

This sweet color is quite a bit lighter and less pinkish than the original. And the clarity of this light color is just absolutely amazing. It's saturated enough to work on its own as a base, but not too saturated. It makes amazing spacers that are a color I just can't really describe with accuracy, but I will try. It works into a deep transparent orchid lavender shade. If this glass were a liquid, I would want to drink it. It's a luscious blend of raspberry and grape.

Aaaaanyway. Simply Berry Unique is relatively stiff like the original, and very, very nice to work with. Both shades have a wonderful clarity when melting - no bubbles or scum have appeared for me. The glass holds its color for both shades, and neither shade bleeds, reacts or sucks up other colors. They are just straightforward and pure - perfect for layering with the various opaque pinks and purples - and even white. I can't wait to try this paired with my traditional fall favorites of coral orange, black and more greens this year.

I bought a bunch of this color, and will lament when it finally runs out, as colors like this tend to do. Hopefully the formula CiM uses will mess up like this again. LOL. CiM in general is fast becoming my favorite glass manufacturer - first becasue they are willing to really listen to us beadmakers on color, and second because the colors they are coming out with lately are just really nice additions to the 104 coe palette. Yey, CiM!!