Wednesday, May 23, 2012

CiM Testing: Moana

Moana is a new color from CiM that I tested recently for Affordable Inspirations. Kerry also sent me a few other colors she wanted it mixed with and this included: Split Pea, Lilac, Purple Haze and Heffalump.


This set was made with Moana as the base and the others colors striped as the flower cane. The donut spacers are Blue Moon spotted with Lilac.


This focal is Moana layered over white. Layering it gave it a very slight lighter appearance.

Moana was lovely to melt and it melted very easily with no scumming or devit. It also played nice with the dichro with no compatibility issues. When heted super hot it can turn a slight miky color, see the ends of some of the beads in the set above.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

CiM Testing: Blue Moon

Another color I tested recently for Affordable Inspirations is Blue Moon. It is now available for sale on Kerry's site and I recommend you throw some of this into your cart with your next order as it is gorgeous.
Unlike Gooseberry, this was a dream to melt and flowed like butter. It never scummed, bubbled or misbehaved even under intense heat. In it's solid form it doesn't look black which is a nice change.


The above donuts were made with Blue Moon layered over white.  The dots are Lilac.  The indented donut is made by Peter Gibson.

This Diva is made from Crocus with Blue Moon wings.


Flower bud has a Lilac base and Blue Moon petals layered over Crocus.  This color combo is gorgeous and much nicer in real life.




These flower buds are Blue Moon over white. Blue Moon is just beautiful over White. Leaf cane was Split Pea and Hades.


These Lentils are made by swirling Lilac, Crocus and Blue Moon together. The flower canes are made from CRocus, Blue Moon, Heffalump and Lilac.

Spacers are Gooseberry, Moana and Blue Moon.

So what do you guys think about Blue Moon?
Next post is on Moana!

Monday, May 14, 2012

CiM Testing - Gooseberry

Kerry from Affordable Inspirations asked me to test some new Cim glass colors, so I was more than happy to help out ;)

Kerry also sent a range of colors to test with the new ones and I stuck to the color range that she sent me, which was Gooseberry mixed with Cranberry, Split Pea, Canyon de Chelly and Heffalump.

This is Gooseberry. Gooseberry was a pain in the butt. It did not want to melt, and I use a Mini CC torch. Because you had to crank up the heat to melt the stuff, it discolors to a darker murkier green than what it is supposed to.   The floral cane was made with Canyon de Chelly striped with Lapis, Blue Moon and Cranberry.


Here it is looking a teeny bit lighter in the form of a 40mm lentil focal. Gooseberry also doesn not seem to like Dichro. If you look closely at the photos you will see cracks all up and down where the dichroic is laid.



Spacers from Left to right: Gooseberry etched and unetched, Split Pea etched and unetched, Heffalump etched and unetched.  As you can see, Gooseberry does NOT etch!  Even after an hour.


And Gooseberry here is swirled with Cranberry, Canyon de Chelly and the roses stringer is made with Heffalmup encased with Cranberry. I love how Canyon reacts with Cranberry on the edges.

You can see more photos of glass testing on Affordable's page here. More colors to come in the next post!