Glass Testing: CiM 589 Zachary

It's been awhile since I have done some glass testing! This time I am testing out Creation is Messy's new opaque called Zachary. The glass is named after the owner Kathy Seamands' brand new baby boy! Congratulations, Kathy. :)


Of course, given its name, Zachary is a lovely baby blue. It's a dense light opaque glass that is a couple shades lighter than Effetre Periwinkle.



Zachary reminds me a lot of CiM Dirty Martini - not because of the color, but because of the density of the glass and the consistency. I really love that CiM's opaques have the ability to keep their color even when they are very light.

Because of this, Zachary makes a nice base for layering, and also stands well on its own. It's not too stiff, but not too soupy and has no bleeding/spreading effect that I could see. It also doesn't tend to seperate and streak like Periwinkle can sometimes do.

Zachary of course makes a great base under all the transparent blues in the 104 COE line - I have used it with Medium Blue and Intense Blue in striping and it works great. In the beads pictured, I experimented with layering colors I normally wouldn't put with blue.

In this first set, I layered it with Effetre Light Steel Grey and touches of clear. The effect is a rainy, icy tone which I really love.

The second set features Zachary layered with Effetre Dark Lavender. This pulls out the blue in the lavender - still icy but a little more cheerful.

Both transparent colors reacted well with Zachary, meaning the opaque light blue is a really stable color and encases well.

I don't normally get excited over blues, but this color kind of fits my mood lately and is pretty much a home run in terms of workability. Yey!

Divine Spark Designs - Jenny Friske-Baer - AGLF Featured Artist

The first person I want to blog about (see the last post for what I am talking about) is Jenny Friske-Baer of Divine Spark Designs. She makes boro and soft glass beads as well as some really pretty metal findings, cold-worked beads and bunches of other cool stuff. I really love her little bird house beads - very sweet! She did up a little bio which I will paste below. Check her out at her website and also her Etsy page!

"My name is Jenny Friske-Baer and I started Divine Spark Designs in December of 2002. My goal is to provide beautiful, unique, handmade lampworked beads, glass and jewelry that will reflect the love and good energy gone into their creation and perhaps inspire others to discover their own Divine Spark within.

I started beading over 10 years ago (who can remember?) and I blame the addiction on my sister Gretchen! She got me started and soon after I often couldn't find that "special" bead for a project. All of you fellow beaders know what I'm talking about - that perfect bead that has to be a certain color or shape or texture to finish off a project (or maybe even start one!). So I decided to try and learn how to make them myself. After sitting at a Hot Head Torch for an afternoon under the expert and patient instruction of my dear friend Kandra, I was hooked! I played for about a year on the Hot Head - saved my money - and now I work on a Bethlehem Barracuda Torch as well as a Lynx Triple Mix torch from Glass Torch Technologies.

Everyday I feel blessed that I am able to sit down at the torch to try and create something that others might find beautiful and full of good energy. And I feel blessed that the love of my life enjoys working side by side with me in our studio (a fancy word for garage!) creating many wonderful fused pieces and stained glass works of art."

AGLF - Battling Fraud Allegations, etc.

Hi all! As some of you may know, I am one of the many lampwork beadmakers and artists that have been targetted by a woman in Texas and accused of tax evasion, fraud and lawbreaking.

A bunch of us have a lawsuit out against this person for defamation (see Ulljas.com for more info on her) and are selling a lampwork calendar as a fundraiser.

The proceeds from the calendar sales are going to the Artisans and Glassworkers Legal Fund to help with the legal costs. The calender is just gorgeous - full of bead pictures - I got mine last month and have it hanging in my office.

Along with the calender sales, we are also trying to help everyone who has been listed on this woman's blog (which I am not linking here - you can see it by checking out Ulljas.com) by blogging about them and moving them up in Google searches.

Many of the artists targetted have been seeing the fraud accusations pages in the Google search results, on the first page. This is hurting their businesses. So, by blogging positive things about these artists, it helps move the negative, untrue stuff down in the search rankings.

I will be taking part in this myself, right here on this blog. If you want to help out, I encourage you to click on the links to the artists's websites in my blog posts and checking them out. There is some wonderful talent to behold.

I, myself , was a target of Ullja - and have been written about on her blog and website. However, her stuff hasn't shown up on my Google search results until page 10 or so, thank goodness. So I am trying to help out the others who haven't been as fortunate.

Anyway - if you've made it through this confusing stuff, yey! :) Now, on to some talented people. Thanks for reading!

Inspiration - Swarovski's New Ad

Swarovski pairs together two of my favorite things - their brilliantly colored crystals and.....kitties!!

Swarovski House of Cats - be inspired!