sampling new glass

I needed to get some black powdered glass, so off I went to my local glass supply store. As per usual, once there I found several items I "needed" and walked out with 2 pizza boxes full of new glass!

I got right to work and made a bunch of (soon to be) pendants with this glass but found it tended to devitrify when full fused. I wasn't up to going back to the store and spending a bunch of money on a special spray that is supposed to prevent devitrification but I found a recipe on the net to make my own overspray. After a trip to the grocey store for Borax, I made some more pendants with a light coating of overspray and fired them. But again the glass devitrified (albeit less so than the first batch). I then decided to cap the new glass (which is untested and may not be capability with my fusing glass) with 96 coe clear and found success! A few more bubbles formed within the glass layers than I normally see but I think the pendants turned out quite nice.

Here are a few made with the new glass:









I had some extra space in the kiln during one of the firing so I added a few other pieces. Here are some pendants made with various kinds of dichroic.


And a few made with mosiac tiles

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.

more pendants

After spending a few weeks away from my hobby, I went glass-fusing crazy last weekend!

Between full fusing and slumping I ended up doing four full loads in the kiln. I finally had the chance to try 2 of my new molds but wasn't that thrilled with the results. I guess I will need to adjust the firing schedule - the glass didn't quite stretch down far enough into the bottom of the mold to produce a nice flat bottom. C'est la vie.

I was particularly busy finishing a project for an upcoming birthday. I tried something new and needed to do a lot of tricky hand-scoring and sanding with my diamond pad. I cut myself multiple times and had sore wrists and arms (scoring, cutting and sanding is hard work!) but I was pretty happy with the results - given that this was a first attempt. I've decided that I really need a glass grinder - that would have made last weekend's project go a lot quicker and yielded a more professional end result. I will post some pictures after the gifts have been received and opened.

I've been receiving special requests for pendants and earrings. I have a batch in the kiln right now but here are a few that were made last weekend:

studs! and other earrings and pendants

A coworker asked if I had made any new earring or pendant-earring sets. She was looking to buy a gift for a friend that would be easy to send overseas in the mail. This gave me the perfect excuse to make another kiln-load full of jewelry pieces!

I tried something new with this batch. Instead of making drop earrings that need earring bails (which I am out of since a big order of them didn't arrive and the seller won't refund my money or replace the package!) and are hung on earring hooks, I decided to make stud earrings.

These earrings are much smaller and fit nicely on the ear. I love how they look - very classy and elegant.

A smaller drop style earring with post backing

A bunch of pendant and earring sets










Marbles were used in some of these earrings and pendants.


I love streakies glass.


Other styles: millefori beads and cathedral (transparent) glass.


I just adore this series. They are my geometric pendants - inspired by that most fabulous bowl I made using these same colours and design.

red glass bowl found a friend

Remember this little red bowl?

This was the first bowl I made. Scoring the circle was WAY harder than I thought it would be and I didn't know how to tidy up the edges before firing. I hoped that the uneven edges would smooth out during the firing. Didn't happen. I like how the piece slumped during the second firing.

Well, I was looking at this little bowl and it seemed lonely. No other piece was made with the same glass and it didn't even have another bowl to hang with.

Here is it's mate:

I used the same glass, cut two layers and did a full fuse.

Here it is after the second firing where I slumped it into a plate mold. Taking photos of glass is hard! Either there is too much light with lots of reflections that wash out the details and the slump shape or there is not enough light. I should get a new camera.


Still have the newest pedants and earrings to post. Stay tuned!