happy birthday to you

When I made my first bowl (the transparent red swirly glass) and posted pictures of it, I immediately got feedback from my sister - who loved the glass, the organic look of the slightly uneven circle and wondered if I could make some for her. Well, I tried to avoid her requests for a custom order and busied myself making pieces for her birthday.

We finally had the family get together last night and I was able to give the set to my sister. I've already posted about the first bowl I made and the first side plate but decided to make a second bowl, a second side plate and a small oval platter -which allowed me to use one of the new molds for slumping.

The first bowl is the one in the upper right. My second attempt resulted in a much better circle - it was quite difficult to score and break out but I tried to do extensive sanding before I fused the layers of glass together.


A closer look at the glass. It's transparent but heavily patterned with swirls of lighter and darker red. This glass is quite a hit. I've had several requests for pendants and earrings made of this.

The last piece in this set was an oval platter. I purchased a mold in this shape to slump into and have been dying to use it since it arrived. I finally had the chance!! Unfortunately it was a difficult shape to hand cut so the oval is a little uneven but I'm sure this will improve with practice. My sister loves handmade things that look handmade so she liked this imperfection.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I need to adjust my firing schedule with this mold as the glass didn't fully slump into the bottom.

I was pretty sure my sister was expecting pieces made from the red glass she loves so I wanted to make another piece she wouldn't be expecting. She recently took up painting as a hobby and made each family member their own painting for Christmas. She seemed to have a particular attachment to one of the pieces that was given away. I tried to replicate the main image of the painting onto a platter for her. I used a transparent orange glass and the darkest glass powder I had (which was blue - I've since bought black and really wish I had it at that time). Her original painting had a background that was a cool sunset of yellow, orange and red. In the foreground were tree branches reaching across the 2 canvas' with 2 birds sitting on one of the branches.

So far, each time I've used powdered glass to 'paint' with I've gotten a patchy effect. Although it looks like I've applied a thick coat and let the glass compound fully dry before firing, I think I will add a second coat the next time I try this. And get a glass grinder so the oval (or other shapes) look more uniform.