Glass Testing: CiM 555 Sacre Bleu Ltd. Run

Hey, everyone! Today's new color test is of Creation is Messy's latest blue - a transparent bright cobalt called Sacre Bleu. This vivid shade is actually a very easy glass to work with, if a bit tough to capture in a picture. It's very intense - even more so than Effetre Intense Blue or CiM's other cobalt blues called Neon Blue and Royal.

Sacre Bleu is probably closest to Royal, in my opinion, but if you put all four rod colors together, you might have a hard time telling the difference. It's a bit lighter and less intense than Effetre's long-standing basic Cobalt glass.

Sacre Bleu was very easy to use - only slightly stiff, but melts smoothly and evenly. It layers extremely well, with no feathering, bleeding, spreading, pitting, etc. I also didn't have any problems with the rods shocking.

I had fun layering this gorgeous blue on top of Effetre Periwinkle, thus lightening it up a bit while keeping the lovely saturation of color. Layering was easy, since Periwinkle is not as stiff as it's CiM counterpart Grumpy Bear. But you can probably use that in place of Periwinkle and not see much difference.

Sacre Bleu is an easy glass to use and love, but it is a bit hard to photograph. Like all cobalt shades, this one shows up lighter and less intense in pictures, and it takes some photo-editing to get it even close to the vivid deep shade of blue it is in real life. This is as close as I could get!

Here's a set of big hole beads I made with these colors, paired up with some saturated purples for an intense, summery effect. 

These beads are now available in my newly re-opened Etsy store!

Glass Testing: CiM 462 Chrysalis and 463 Siren

This post starts off the new batch of colors from Creation is Messy for the fall - yey!

On to the first two colors! These two colors seemed to match, so I tested them together.

First up is Chrysalis - which CiM says they formulated as an opaque version of Kryptonite - one of their popular opal colors. The color itself is a pastel minty blue/green. I would say first off that they were only a little bit successful making this an opaque color. Chrysalis can appear more opaque in some circumstances - and this ends up being a tricky thing to do - but a lot of the time it qualifies to me as a dense opal.

Chrysalis does have a nice consistency when melting, though - not too soupy and not too stiff. It behaves like an opal while being worked - going hazy-clear when melted and staying that way for a good amount of time while it cools. When making spacers I was able to get it to go opaque quite easily, but when pulling it into a petal there were spots of opaque and spots of translucence. Because of this color's paleness, this was hard to capture in a photograph.

I did notice that when layering this color, it did stay somewhat opaque when thickly encased and cooled slowly. However, Chrysalis does have a tendency to bleed and feather to various degrees, depending on what you melt it on top of and how thickly you've covered it.

While working with this color, I couldn't find much consistency in how often it would go opaque or stay translucent - it felt kind of random to me. But I imagine that working with it for awhile would enable me to discover a pattern.

The color itself is quite lovely - of a similar tone as Kryptonite. I would love it if Chrysalis was as dense and opaque as Dirty Martini! As it is, I probably won't use this again, because it was so hard to layer.



Next, we have Siren - a transparent shade that was to be a remake of the color Aloe Juice - and for me it's a dead ringer! This is exciting, because Aloe Juice was one of my favorites, and I was sad when they ran out.

Siren is a gorgeous shade of light green with just a hint of teal. I would call it pale teal green. It pretty much has the same simple characteristics as Aloe Juice, which I reviewed here.  It's got great consistency, doesn't bubble or scum or shock, is a nice viscosity, and layers very well.

Siren is just a bit bluer than Appletini and slightly greener than any of the teal shades. It's a great addition to the palette, as there is no similar shade other than the sold-out Aloe Juice.

Aloe Juice on the left, Siren on the right

Here are some beads made with Chrysalis and Siren, along with black, Aloha, Trade Winds and the metallic Electra. More colors to come!

Glass Testing: CiM 551 Prussian Blue & 442 Prairie Grass Ltd. Runs

 New colors today! I have one brand new color in this post and one that was in the batch from last year that I hadn't had a chance to test until now.

First off, we have the new color, called Prussian Blue. This pretty deep opaque color is a kind of midnight blue in the rod, but because it has a lot of silver in it, Prussian Blue is reactive.  When left as a base, uncovered, Prussian Blue is very dark blue with some streaks of greyish green. This is a lot like Class M Planet, which does the same thing but is lighter in tone.

L- Class M Planet, R-Prussian Blue

When you encase or layer Prussian Blue, the blue tones become brighter and the greens all but disappear. This color makes an excellent layering glass if you want some rich midnight, navy or cobalt blues.

Because this is a silver glass, it's not as smooth in consistency (it's slightly bumpy when pulled into stringer), and is slightly stiff, but seems to be able to take a good amount of heat. When left plain, Prussian Blue has lots of striations and streaks - some blue, some grey-green. But that goes away when you encase it.

I had no shocking issues with this color, and it didn't bleed or spread when encased or layered. Using it with a medium or light transparent blue will give you a gorgeous rich midnight blue.

Next we have Prairie Grass, a light opaque spring green that came out late last year. This pretty shade is really close to Elphaba - just a little bit lighter and a little bit more yellow (but not much!). I would say that both these colors can be used as a substitute for each-other.

Prairie Grass is really buttery and nice to work with. It does get striations when left as a base, and can bleed a tiny bit when encased, but not nearly as much as the Effetre greens do. It doesn't seem to spread much at all when layered. This color didn't shock when heated, and had no pitting or boiling issues.

Like most opaque greens, Prairie Grass lightens up a lot when encased in clear, and goes a little more yellowish. I loved using this color with just a bit of Effetre Light Emerald - makes a cheerful spring green.

The beads below were made with Prussian Blue and Prairie Grass, paired with Effetre Light Emerald and Effetre Light Blue.

Glass Testing: CiM 425 Mint Chip and CiM 452 Peat Moss Limited Runs

Today I am blogging about my tests on a brand new CiM color and also on a CiM color that came out about a year ago (I think).  I liked how these two colors layered with eachother, so I decided to do them together.  Both are limited runs, as usual, so if you like them, get them soon!


First up is the older color (although still new enough to be in stock) Mint Chip. Boy does CiM like to make green! That's okay with me, because Effetre opaque greens are harder to work with, so I love a variety of nice, stable greens to choose from.

Mint Chip is a lovely shade of pale spring green that is less greyish than Dirty Martini, less bluish than It Ain't Easy Being, less yellowish than Primavera, and slightly less vivid than Cardamom. Here's a pic I took awhile back comparing some of the pale CiM green opaques.

This lovely shade of green is a joy to work with. No problems at all, and I have made several sets with it. It's not too soft, melts smoothly and doesn't shock (yey!!) I didn't notice any streaking, and it had no problems with bleeding and spreading when encased or layered. It's does lighten up a lot when encased in clear, which is why I primarily use this color to layer with medium and dark transparent greens. Using it with anything super light will wash the color out, so keep that in mind if you're going to make, say, flower petals that are melted in.

Mint Chip base is scrolled with encased stringer

Mint Chip does stay all the way opaque, so in that way it reminds me of Dirty Martini - nice and dense, even though it is very light. Also keep in mind that when this color is hot, it goes grey. It goes back to minty green when it cools off, so don't worry!










In my latest test, I used Mint Chip with the brand new medium transparent called Peat Moss.  It's really hard to classify this color - which is something I love, actually. I adore colors that sit between the norms - they excite me. Peat Moss is like a khaki mixed with olive - a pretty medium shade of green that has orange-y undertones. Layering it with Mint Chip brings out the green a bit more, making it more olive in tone.

I loved the clarity of this color. One thing to keep in mind though is that if you heat too fast, it might bubble a bit. Heat gently, and if haze or scum appears on your gather you can burn it off by gently heating more. That being said, I was able to make the sample and the spacers without much trouble. Once pulled into stringer, layering was simple.

You can see in the beads pictured below that Peat Moss appears much darker by itself than it does when layered with the Mint Chip. If you want a more vivid shade, I would recommend using a darker opaque to layer it with. This might be fun to use with Ogre or Dragon, since those two have the weird brown streaks that pop up.

Peat Moss is one of those shades that I think people are either going to love or hate - depending on how adventurous they are with color. I love how it looks by itself, personally. It's fun!

Beads below are made with Peat Moss, Mint Chip, Adobe and Sakura, with DH Zephyr Clear. More tests to come!