Random News and a Tutorial Sale

HI all!  It's been awhile, I know.  Sometimes the blog suffers when things are busy!

So here are a few updates....

First, I am having a tutorial sale this week.  Until May 10th, all of my tutorials on Coloraddiction are 30% off!  This includes the pumpkin tutorial.  Just use the coupon code MAYSALE when checking out.

**this does not include tutorials by Kim, or tutorials listed on Etsy.  Only the items under "Kandice's Tutorials" on the page linked here are included.


Next, just to let all interested parties know, the reveal date for the Bead Soup Blog Party has been moved to next weekend, instead of this weekend.  The coordinator moved it for medical reasons, and I wish her a speedy recovery and lots of love!

I have finished my jewelry pieces for the blog party/hop, and I am really happy with them.  It was a serious challenge for me, since I am first and foremost a glass beadmaker, and have only limited experience designing jewelry.  But I had a lot of fun stretching my creative muscles!  You'll see the results next weekend, and I will talk more about my process then.

Another piece of news - I have finished May's Bead of the Month Club beads.  They're purple and green, some of my faves for summer.  I'm now taking orders for June and beyond. Click the pic to see previous months and info on signing up.

As far as glass testing goes, I haven't done a lot lately.  I did run tests on the new CiM color Flax, but it's so pale and transparent that pictures of it just didn't turn out.  Plus, the color itself is way better as a layering color for cream, pale green or yellow, so pics of beads don't really show just the Flax color.  Sooo, I decided that it wouldn't be a fabulous color to write up.

I can tell you that it's lovely for what it is - a very, very pale transparent yellow-green.  I used it to enhance the cream color of Hazelnut Mousse in these pink and cream beads. As you can tell, any green that Flax may have when looked at by itself goes away when you use it for layering.  It's really, really light.  I may buy some to use in place of Effetre Light Brown when I need a paler cream color, but that's about the extent of its use for me.

Last but not least, people have been wondering where the beads are lately!  Mostly because I haven't been listing as many of them on my website as I used to. I have been making other beads to sell, but instead of posting them on the website, I have mostly been listing them as auctions on a couple of new Facebook groups.

If you're interested in getting some of my beads for a really great price, join one of the Facebook groups to bid. You will also see lots of other great lampwork artists posting their auctions. Lots of eye candy! My auctions are usually 24 hours long, so if you don't see anything from me, it just means I haven't got any to post that day.

 Lampwork Bead Market Group

Yes, I will still be listing beads on the website - just maybe not as many as before. I will continue to try and do both for awhile and see how that turns out.

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful weekend!  :)

Pantone Color for 2014 Radiant Orchid - A Tall Order for Glass Beadmakers!

Radiant Orchid

Pantone - the influencial color design company - just announced their color of the year for 2014 - a gorgeous pinkish purple called Radiant Orchid. It's such a lovely color - I could hear the jubilant cheers of designers from here!

However, as I am sure lots of glass beadmakers would agree, it's kind of a mixed bag for us in the lampworking world. While Radiant Orchid is really beautiful, it's not an easy color to find in glass.

The closest hue I can see would be Effetre's 254 Opaque Purple, which is nicknamed EDP, or Evil Devitrifying Purple. Most glass beadmakers I have talked to have a love/hate relationship with EDP, me included. It's a singularly beautiful shade of orchid purple, but it has a habit of blooming into a chalky, yucky, pitted pinkish matte color when worked in the flame. Encasing it is damn near impossible.

One of the only times I used EDP successfully - as a base and as frit.

These days, EDP has been reformulated and has come in several batches, each one having a little less of a tendency to devitrify, thank goodness.  The most recent batch I bought doesn't devit nearly as much as the original, but it still bleeds and spreads when you layer it.  Therefore, it's best used as a base, which really limits its usability for me. Frantz Art Glass has a blog post about working with devitrifying glass - and it is helpful for those beads that just have EDP as a base. 

There are some beadmakers out there who do amazing things with EDP, and have learned how to coax out the best properties of the color - and to those miracle workers I doff my cap to you.

Lavender glass with Rubino scrolls - somewhat close to Radiant Orchid?

In the days ahead, I am going to try and layer different shades of pink and purple to see if I can approximate Pantone's Radiant Orchid - we'lll have to see if I am successful.  It should be a fun journey!

New eBook Coming Soon....Color Theory!

I am working on a new book dedicated to color theory for the glass beadmaker.  This will likely be a lot longer than any of my other tutorials - I have lots of great information to put into this book.  It's in the early stages, so it doesn't have a title, price or cover art quite yet.  I just wanted to let everyone know that it is in the works and will hopefully be available at the beginning of the new year.

I do know that the ebook will be geared towards the beginning/novice beadmaker, but will have some information even for the intermediates as well.  The book will focus on color theory, application and technical aspects of color, and will have some great color combination recipes and lots of pictures. I'm throwing in pretty much everything I know about the subject - so I hope people will find it useful, inspiring and most of all, fun!  I'll keep you updated!

Beadmaking Tutorial Sale, and New Colors Coming Soon!

Okay, so usually when I do a tutorial sale (a few times a year) I do a buy-one-get-one-free kind of deal.  This sale is different.  Until midnight Friday night, all tutorials in my Etsy shop have been marked down by several dollars each.  There's no buying limit or minimum for this one.  This only counts for the Etsy store - the tutorials on Coloraddiction (the same ones) haven't been changed. That's because I don't want to change the PayPal buttons.  :)  So check out my Etsy store to see all 7 of my beadmaking tutorials on sale.

So....why the sale you ask?  Well, for a few different reasons.  First and most important - to help my current precarious financial situation. I won't lie - I am in a bit of a mess, and have been for awhile now.  Those who follow the blog know about the lawsuit, so I won't get into that except to say it's still going on.  We're struggling - like so many people out there - so every little bit helps.

Also, sales of tutorials have slowed a bit, and I want to give some extra incentive to get mine - which are great for newbies just getting into beadmaking, as well as intermediates who haven't run across my work until now.

Third, I am thinking of retiring a few of the older ones, so they will likely be disappearing after this sale is over. 

Will I be doing any new tutorials?  The answer to that is probably not for awhile.  I am a bit burned out on them and want to focus more on beadmaking.  Plus, I have run out of ideas.  :)

In other news - there are new CiM colors out to test, so look for new posts on those very soon.  CiM has made some gorgeous new greys that I am excited to try, as well as some opals that I really need to experiment with.  CiM has been releasing a lot more colors lately in their new Ltd Run category, and those will be fun to test.  I sure hope they continue to release colors which will be in their permanent line-up!

That's it for now - I hope everyone stays cool and has a fun summer!

Changes and Updates - New Colors Coming!

Just a quick blog today....

I sure have been absent for a long time!  I want everyone to know though that I have freed up quite a bit of time, so there will be more frequent updates here on Coloraddiction.  Starting off with some brand new CiM color reviews coming this week!  I just tested a batch of the most vivid and beautiful colors I've seen in quite awhile, and I can't wait to review them for you.

I also wanted to let people know that I am no longer affiliated with the AGLF, so you will no longer see me updating about that here - no more pestering for funds, no more depressed posts about stress and fear.  All I can say about that is that I am no longer a member of AGLF.  The reasons are only important to me, so I won't bore you with details.  This frees up time and and effort, so I will be concentrating more on glass and beads.  Yey!

So stay tuned for the next color review, which will be CiM's new colors Azure and Apple Martini. 
See you soon!

Random Stuff This Week

Ahhhhhh.  It's 8 million degrees outside (read: 95), and I am so thankful for my small, portable air conditioner. 

This week, I have spent most of my time here in the office doing computer stuff, so I haven't torched a whole lot.  It's too hot! 

I did manage to get a few beads made, though.  These are wistful wishes for cooler, autumn days. 

I made my first pumpkins of the season, changing up the green for the scrolling vines to CiM Soylent encased in Effetre Grass Green.  I really like the difference it makes - the green is still earthy, but a little more vibrant than I have had in the past. 

I used various shades of Effetre Coral for the oranges - Coral makes the best autumn orange, in my opinion. They're not really coral in color at all - funny how Effetre Coral hasn't actually been coral in a long time.  

I made more beads - they're listed over on my Beads For Sale page on my website.

I'm looking forward to going to the Frantz Art Glass Bash next weekend in Shelton.  This is always a fun time - lots of demos and such.  They always have huge glass sales during the bash, but alas, no glass for Kandice this time.  I don't have the extra funds to spend, but I am still going to go.  There are always lots of fun people to chat with and wonderful beads to look at, so hopefully this will help with the creative mojo, which has been on what seems like permanent hiatus lately.

Lastly, I have been working on a couple of websites....namely Coloraddiction.com and Kimberlyaffleck.com.  I've been meaning to redo both of them for awhile now - and I finally just took the time to do it.   Both are done in a similar style with different colors.  I think both sites look more polished now - what do you think?

That's pretty much it for now - I hope everyone is staying cool!  :)