Creation is Messy

We founded Creation is Messy with an idea: partnering with both beadmakers and artisan glass makers would revolutionize the 104 COE glass palette.

Since 2006, we have been hand pulling glass rods to continuously expand the soft glass color palette- offering long overdue new colors, developed especially for our community of beadmakers.

Our pre-existing relationship with a small, family-owned factory near Yancheng (China) allowed the freedom to develop our new palette, drawing from the decades of expertise of the chemist there. Together we engineered our colors to be compatible with the legacy products of the traditional Italian palette. Our chemist Zhou is brilliant at creating new glassy and fabulous things!

We stand for artists.

Our mission is to continually expand the 104 color palette to nurture artistic potential in this ever evolving art form. We have always been artist, tester, and customer driven. We take all feedback for improvement to heart. Most of our new colors are engineered in direct response to color requests.

We believe in #handmade and our boutique rods are 100% hand pulled. Hand pulling cane brings another layer of artistry to our product which we believe adds unique value as other manufacturers increasingly depend on automation.

We stand for innovation.

Creation is Messy started with three introductory colors. From the very beginning, our signature pink Gelly's Sty, our opaque sea foam green Celadon, and our rich beige Butter Pecan answered long standing demand.

We have never stopped innovating to bring new colors that enrich possibilities for glass beadmakers. Some of our more successful innovations include:

Peace, a stiffer and denser opaque white that allows for sculptural work and murrini making.
Moonstones that create a slight milk glass look, such as Cirrus.
Streamers- transparent glass rods with colored stripes, such as Ocelot.
Misty & milky opals that stay translucent even after annealing.

We also have a standard range of old favorite colors that we reproduce as the market demands. Because we are small and agile, we can respond to demand for new and staple colors.

We stand for quality.

All CiM colors pass multiple quality control checks before making it to the artist. Every batch of color is checked for:

Compatibility: Every melt is tested for compatibility. Because there are inconsistencies across all product lines, even from melt to melt, we use the trident seal test to test all CiM colors to be compatible with a baseline target of 104 COE.

Consistency: Every batch is examined for subtle shifts in hue. When a difference is determined to be significant to artists, a batch may be labelled as a Ltd Run to mark the difference. Stringent quality control of the hue distinguishes us from other glass manufacturers, who sometimes sell a specific formula as the same color even if there are dramatic differences between melts.

Confirmation: Every color is analyzed by our expansive tester network. Before a color reaches the customer, multiple expert peers have evaluated the glass and provided feedback on its working properties.

We stand for teamwork.

The CiM team is exceptionally small. Kathy is a team of one and manages every aspect of the business, while Zhou manages every side of production with a small team of expert glass workers. The strong partnership between production and business is the critical link that keeps us quality focused and productive.

But what really brings CiM together is the amazing support by our testing team and the glass art community at large. Every artist has a hand in creating our unique and beautiful product line.

Nothing delights us more than seeing what people create with CiM colors- thank you for letting us be a part of it!

We stand for transparency.

Tester and community feedback are what drive Creation is Messy. There is nothing more important to our business than to strive for constant improvement.

We stand behind our colors- if you ever have a difficulty with our products, please contact us so we can make it right for you. We also welcome your color requests, or you can share feedback and ideas by email.

We welcome you to join our community and to peruse our web site. This site is an encyclopedic resource transparently detailing both positive and negative comments on every color for your review. We hope you find it a useful tool.

Thank you for your ongoing love and support of our color offerings! We look forward to creating with you.