Test Results :: Great Bluedini

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain with silver leaf, 3 - Over clear, 4 - w/ silver leaf, reduced & encased, dots over Ivory, 5 - w/ Khaos frit, 6 - w/ Triton stringer, 7 & 8 - w/ Ivory

I don't even know how to find the right words to describe how deeply I've fallen in love with CiM Great Bluedini after melting only three rods of it.

Before I ever got to the torch, I found myself wondering where the heck the strange name came from, so my friend Google coughed up some links for me.  If you're interested, you can read the story of the Great Bluedini here.

General Impressions
Great Bluedini is not as green as Effetre Dark Teal, but is greener than CiM Leaky Pen.  If I had to relate it to already-existing 104 palette glass, I'd say it's similar to Effetre Dark Aqua, only without the fireworks and a few shades darker.

I'm a girl who is normally pretty afraid of transparent colours, but wow, do I ever love Great Bluedini.  This is a must-have colour.  I'm totally drinking the Kool-Aid :)

Reduction
Not much happens when you reduce Bluedini all by itself, but the silver leaf in Bead #4 was reduced and subsequently encased on a base of Great Bluedini, and I think that looks pretty neat.  The Great Bluedini underneath the silver seems to be bleeding up on top of it, which is also very interesting.

Colour Density
In rod form, Great Bluedini looks dark, but I didn't fully grasp how very dark and dense it was until I made the solid lentils.  (Bead #1, #2, #5 & #6).  Once I started to melt it, when I saw how dark it is when applied in a thick layer, I was pleasantly surprised by how much less boily/sparky it is than the other dark transparent colours I've used.  Effetre Dark Teal and CiM Leaky Pen, for instance, are both really sparkly.

Great Bluedini, while really dark and dense, lightens up beautifully over Clear  (Bead #3) or Ivory (the dots on Bead #4).  If the dots-on-ivory are melted flush, they change colour and there is a reaction (see section on Reactions) but if left raised, they stay pretty and crisp. (Bead #4)

Reactions

Just like Dark Aqua, when melted flush to Ivory, Great Bluedini takes on a greenish hue. (Bead #7)  It also acquires a thin dark outline, the same way most other blues and greens would.  I'm not sure how well you can see it in the picture, but when Ivory is placed over Bluedini, the Ivory separates slightly, developing a really fine line down the centre of stringer lines or a small circle in the centre of dots.  (Bead #7 & #8)  The close-up to the right shows both of these reactions.

The yellowish line along the border of the Ivory and Great Bluedini seems to be the Ivory separating and curdling, which makes me really want to try this colour with Dark Ivory to see what happens.

I am also really excited about how Great Bluedini behaves with silver glass.  I am terrible at striking Khaos frit, but over Great Bluedini, even I can strike Khaos frit without difficulty. (Bead #5)

Triton just LOVES it, and when applied as stringer and lightly reduced, it's super-shiny and has a lighter, mirrored edging around it that is incredible.  Reducing the Triton on the Great Bluedini also fumed the surface of the bead to a mottled, blue-purple iridescence in places.  Wow.  (Bead #6)

I didn't get to do as much testing as I might like because I didn't have all that much of the glass. I'm sure the world will hear more from me about Great Bluedini once I get my hands on some more.

Until then, here are the only 'fun beads' I got to make with Great Bluedini.  I didn't even get to stare at them for a whole day before they were snatched up as mother-daughter baby gifts on a pre-Christmas visit with friends.