Everything Else

From our Facebook fans, here are a few household items that can be used as tools in art glass creation. Some great ideas here! Hairspray for gluing (the non-aerosol kind, the cheaper, the better!) Olive oil for your glass cutter The spoony straw from a slush puppie for pouring small amounts of frit Butter knives for bead making Chinese take out containers for storing smaller pieces of fusable glass. They are rectangular and stack well with a clear lid. Also, the soup containers to store frit (each size of frit in its own container stacked within the others of like color and only the top one needs a lid, and they are clear) Glass yogurt pots for storing frit and other bits Plastic containers that tubs of crystal light comes in for storing smaller pieces of glass. I also save the tubs for mixing glue/water, frit and water, paint, etc. Shelves that hold plastic bins for toys. Theyre great for storing scrap pieces of glass, sorting them out into colors. Needles stuck in pencil erasers for drawing designs in frit/paint Small skewers for smoothing copper foil and drawing designs in frit/paint Metal pick set (like dentists use - found at Harbor Fre

Delphi merchandiser Kayleigh McGrath recently shared some photos from her early days at Delphi. She was playing around with different colors and textures of glass and learning the hard way that there are limits to what you can do (and can't do) in fusing. The first image shows what happened when Kayleigh layered dichroic glass, coating to coating. The base is 90 COE dichroic rainbow pixi stix on black, (Delphi item: 921714) and the top is an old texture we don't carry any more (cyan red radium on clear.) The second image is of a piece Kayleigh loved so much she impatiently removed it from the kiln when it was still too hot (haven't we all done this!) As you can see, it suffered thermal shock. This was made with the same 90 COE pixi stix on black for the base and capped with Delphi item: U630090 90 COE Uroboros Souble Rolled Clear) Moral of the story? Fusing is about trial and error. Sometimes you end up with something truly amazing, and sometimes you end up with a mess. That's the fun of it! Looking for Fusing Tips?