Glass Testing: CiM 527 Anchor

A brand new batch of CiM glass colors arrived at my door the other day...and as excited as I am about those pretty things, I still have some blogging to do about colors I got before the holidays.

This is one of those colors - too pretty to pass over for the new ones! Anchor is a really dark but very saturated teal blue - slightly darker and a bit more blue than Leaky Pen, a color I tend to compare all teals with these days.

 Anchor is so dark in fact, that it look black in rod form and in plain spacers. It's even pretty dark when encased in clear. So to lighten it up a bit, I paired it with Effetre Periwinkle, a light cornflower blue that is my go-to for layering with super dark blue colors. This pair makes a really nice layering team - especially in melted-in designs, and as encased stringer.

The one drawback for this jewel tone is that it's slightly stiff, so when I made raised flower petals, the Anchor didn't spread as well over the softer Periwinkle. Since CiM opaque colors are usually stiffer than Effetre's, I would definitely choose a CiM blue next time I want to layer the Anchor.
 
Other than that, Anchor is a lovely color - the glass itself works nicely without much bubbling or scumming, and has no shocking issues that I can see. Thin layers work best, to keep it from being too dark. It really sings when melted in and encased under a thin layer of clear.

These beads were made with Vet. Black, CiM Hades, Moccasin, Chateau, Anchor and Effetre Periwinkle. The clear is DH Zephyr, and the metallic is DH Helios.