How-To

My husband and I recently met a spectacular couple, a genuine cowgirl and cowboy. Besides being fortunate enough to purchase a very sweet horse from them, we are proud to be able to call them our friends. While at their home I learned that her one of her best friends, her horse, had passed away the previous year. "Yoda" had carried her though years on the Rainbow Riders drill flag team, taken her to reigning championships, and safety along countless miles of trails.

     I wanted to do something special for her, and also try something new for me. I remembered seeing an article in the Delphi newsletter about making fused glass silhouettes from a photograph.

    While at her home I snuck a picture of her and Yoda sliding to victory, on my cell phone. I downloaded the picture and adjusted it to an appropriate size for a 10" by 10" ...

I know I'll never get up the nerve to open my kiln to rake. Instead, I was wondering, can I fake...I mean, rake it? 

I was recently in Monterey, CA visiting a shop on Cannery Row, where glass artist David Alcala is usually busy at work.

The day I visited, he was out (at the Glass Art & Bead Expo) promoting his new book and Flexi-Glass.

His lovely wife was holding down the fort and I marveled at his landscapes made with fine glass frit. I knew I had a lot of Uroboros frit and powder at home, and it inspired me to try and fake a kiln rake with frit.

I laid out a sheet of newspaper, and donned my goggles and ...

Before I was fortunate enough to own a kiln, I used to experiment with all kinds of polymer clay using recipes for faux gemstones. It was fun and inexpensive.

While giving a fused glass lesson the other day, I said, "Hey, lets try to make some faux opals." So, we crushed up some green and orange, clear backed dichroic glass (from the Uroboros Magic Box), and mixed in a tiny bit of crushed opaque white glass.

We cut two transparent ovals, covered them with Bullseye Glastac Firing Glue, and sprinkled on the frit. We added another layer of glue and piled up some more frit. The beauty of this glue is that you can use as much as you want. I love it for holding the frit on the edges of bowls and glass.

The fired pieces ...

I am always trying to save my scraps, even if they are metal. I grind my glass, pin backs and bails with my dremel tool (I've found that they stay glued together much better that way), and I started saving all of the grinding scraps. I save the sterling silver grindings in one bottle, and my gold plate with mixed metals, in another.

One day, I was looking at some old green sea glass lying on the beach. I thought about folks sending notes out in a bottle, and it being found miles away, full of sand on a beach. I wondered if I could capture that idea in a pendant.

When I got home I put those ground metals to use.

First, I cut one square of transparent glass, then a smaller square of aqua-green transparent glass, and a tiny square of transparent glass.

I sprinkled some of the mixed metal grindings on top of the clear glass, then placed the aqua glass on top of that.

On top of the aqua glass, I sprinkled the sterling silver grindings, and capped it with ...

I'm always looking for ways to use my scrap, so I decided to give the round screen melt set a try.  I had mixed feelings about it, because I made the mistake of not following the fusing schedule, and tried to wing it with my pre-programmed kiln. Despite the error of my ways, I ended up with some very pretty glass using two colors of opal art glass scraps.

With my screen melt complete, I used a Sharpie pen to trace out my images, and began cutting them with my Taurus 3 Ring Saw. Once I finished the shapes, I put the pendants and purse hangars back in my skutt Firebox 14 kiln, for a fire polish on the slow tack fuse.

Some got bails ...

It is true. Even the best of us get bored. We work and learn and experiment with one medium or one itty piece of said  medium (which, like a new love, we are infatuated with - can think of nothing else)…but, after a while -things can get stale. It's normal. The beauty is to realize that all these lovely and wonderful and awe inspiring mediums do not have to live in a vacuum. When you get bored with one…do a little of what I like to call "Medium Mash-Up."

My latest mashups have been with my own fused glass and silver. You can only fuse so many pendants and plates before you've had enough. For me, that means it's time to move on to another process for a while. After working in silver (mostly rings) and loving it…one day I found myself staring longingly at my lonely and unused kiln (I think she was jealous of my new fling, er, medium) - it was then I decided to bring my glass and silver work together and introduce them. ...

Photographing glass objects is not easy, and yet, it's often the photograph that sells the piece.

If you're advertising classes online or selling your work on Ebay, Etsy or ArtFire, good photography is essential.

Here's what you will need:

1. A light tent. You can purchase one for about $100, or you can make your own relatively inexpensively. Read this article for step-by-step instructions on making your own light tent.

2. Light fixtures. You need at least one light for illuminating directly onto the object from above. If you have a desk lamp with an adjustable "neck", that will work. If you are getting too many shadows, or too much glare, you may need a set of lights to illuminate the sides of the box instead. Just make sure you're using "daylight" or "full spectrum" bulbs, and that all of your fixtures a ...

Frit Molds are becoming increasingly more popular, especially with all the new styles of jewelry molds coming out.  Getting a beautiful finished project can be tricky at times. 

Issue #1:  Glass tends to stick;  and create sharp ‘daggers’ on the sides of the glass project.  This can happen when the glass ‘separator’ is getting thin or worn away.

Boron Nitride MR-97 is the answer.   It is a versatile product that can also be used on stainless steel molds as well.  Think of it like ‘teflon’ on your frying pan.   It will not allow the glass to stick to the mold.  Projects pop right out and are ready to wear.  You do have to follow the instructions and reapply as directed.  

Watch a ...

The holiday season is over. The ham has been eaten and all your resolutions have been made (and probably broken). The time for making and giving out all your large and time consuming presents has passed...now what? Creatively stunted? Need a change of pace or something that is easy, simple yet stunning?

I know around this time of the year, I sure do. I need an activity that has a fast turn around time and the oomph to push me to create more. Sometimes just the act of creating can push you kicking and screaming through a creative block. Enter the fun (and inexpensive) holey molds. What a perfect way to use up scrap glass AND to produce a baseline piece from which to creatively expand upon. The best part? As the name denotes...they fuse with the hold already MADE - no messy, time consuming drilling! (Which, in the dead of winter in Maine - for me - is a pain in my rear as I have to go out in my unheated barn to drill.)

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As a "crafty" person, the holiday time can be rough. Not only are we lugging around 7.4 million pounds of "product" to various craft shows, we also have the expectation upon us that we will hand make everyone's holiday gift...because, we're crafty like that (plus, you and I both know that it would KILL us to buy gifts that we could otherwise make - it's in our DNA). So, at the end of the day - our backs and feet are killing us, we'd rather die than smile or make small talk with one more person, we have a car full of stuff to unload (which we also both know will stay there for another 3 weeks until we can't stand it much longer)...and I have to MAKE a present for your sister's husband's aunt's niece who is in college? Oy.

Enter the scrap glass suncatcher slash holiday ornament. This has been my go-to holiday gift, birthday present, housewarming trinket....the "oh-my-I-can't-believe-that-day-has-come-so-fast-and-I-have-nothing-made" gift. Not only is it eye catc ...