paints and plates

The holidays are over so it's back to work tomorrow...sigh. I had a lot of fun being off for 2 weeks - visiting with family and friends, cooking and baking, eating way too much and making lots of crafts. Aside from all the glass items I also made some homemade soap but neglected to take photos of the process once again.

My kiln was firing away all weekend so all the pieces I made have now been fused. These 2 pieces were also slumped. The plates on the right didn't turn out as planned (see how the glass pulled in a bit and the corners are a tad pointed? The black area has only 1 layer of glass and was lacking in volume so it didn't fuse quite right). Also, devitrification occurred on the white glass so I need to get some overspray and refire it.


I made a pair of small rectangular plates to match the retro platter. This is still my favourite piece.


More appetizer plates. They still have to be slumped but that will have to wait until next weekend.






I also made my own liquid stringer compound (aloe vera gel + glass powder + distilled water) this weekend. I put the mixture in squeeze bottles and away I went.



I made a few small items to be sure it would work before using it on plates or bigger pieces. I was quite pleased with the results - it's really easy to work with and because of the aloe vera gel, it smells great! My only complaint is that I don't have enough colours (time to go back to the glass store for more powders) and the hole in the nozzle of the sqeeze bottles is a bit too big. I might use a pastry bag and tips for my next attempt.


I think the kitties are cute. I'm planning to make 2 more and then will fuse them into a larger piece of glass to make a plate. My mom has requested one to be made into a pendant.