New Tutorial Today!

Good morning all! Happy Holidays to those who are celebrating this winter season. I have been working all week and weekend on a new tutorial - I wanted to get this out before Christmas - and here it is!

For the last year I have gotten the occasional request for a tutorial on how I do my encased stripe beads. Now, I know this is not the most original technique out there, but there are a lot of beadmakers who haven't quite mastered this style. Also, I wanted to do more than just give a basic step by step on the stripe bead.

This tutorial does cover the basic stripe - but also talks about some of the variations to get a more vivid, complex stripe bead. I also give some advice about what colors I love to use, and a few colors that just don't play well. And of course, there are lots of pictures!

I came up with a price of $14 for this 17 page pdf file. I hope you will take a look and let me know what you think. Thanks!

Lovely Color Inspiration

I just wanted to post a quick blurb this morning - my cousin Andrea has a new blog about weddings....and she is inspired by color! A woman after my own heart. She has some lovely color articles up that just may inspire some creativity. I know I love the Slate, Hot Pink and Creamsicle post. Her photos are delicious and her writing is effervescent and fun. Can't wait to see what else she comes up with. :)

Comfort Beads and New Discoveries

Sometimes, when I am down in the dumps (which is so often the case around the holidays), I feel the need to just make beads that are comforting and which make me happy. These past couple of weeks I have really fallen back on those most-practiced color schemes and designs.

Pink and brown is one of those color schemes that I have done so many times I can almost do them in my sleep. The colors bring up rose petals and cappuccino in my mind. I hope they never go out of style, because making them always puts a much-needed smile on my face.
I put black in there for some variety, and because lately I have been putting black in almost every set I have done.

Black is the color I use when I am looking to really highlight the other colors. It really makes everything pop right out. Also, when I use a lot of black, it's usually reflective of my mood - dark and introspective.

Last week I stumbled on a really pretty glass pairing that brought out the most gorgeous shade of liquid gold - metallic and delicate.
Opal Yellow encased with a bit of Double Helix Light Aurae, reduced just a little to bring out the metals. You can bet I stuck these colors right on black for a set of classic beads that I think would go with anything. I've never been able to get such a pretty shade of gold before - and I am not much of a gold lover when it comes to metals.

That kind of discovery on my own makes me happy, especially since I am not usually a silver glass user - I tend to shy away from those glasses. The Double Helix Aurae shades are a definite exception, though. Someday let's hope they do a pink one, so I can have both comfort and newness in one set of beads!

Oh, yeah - these are all for sale on my website - click the pics to see them.

Glass Testing: CiM 586 Mermaid, UPDATE

When last I wrote about CiM Mermaid, it was a brand new color that I had received a rod of to test. Apparently, I got a bad rod, because when I was recently asked to re-test it just in case, I had a completely different experience than the last time. So here I am to update you on the properties of this pretty glass!

Before, I had major issues with shockiness and cracking. Thank goodness that was just an anomaly! The new rods I got to test were from the same batch as the first rod, but no shocking whatsoever.

The stability of this glass in the flame is by far the biggest change from the first time I tested the glass - and I am so glad about that, because this color is just gorgeous. Here are some other things I have discovered about Mermaid -

It's not as streaky as it was the first time, which is nice, but still does streak and separate a little bit, like most green opaques do in the 104 coe lines. Encasing doesn't seem to reduce this effect much, but it's subtle, so I kind of like it.

One really nice thing is that Mermaid doesn't seem to bleed or spread nearly as much as I expected it to - most dark opaque greens bleed like crazy, making them hard to layer or encase. I was able to encase stripes of Mermaid over black with no problems at all.

CiM Leaky Pen seems to be a perfect match for Mermaid - encased stringer with these two colors is just fantastic. Very vivid and pretty, I think.

I've used Mermaid in several sets now, and I am very happy with its density and depth - and this color is not a repeat of any other color in any 104 coe line, which makes me happy as well. I have already bought more and will continue to experiment with it.