My grinder arrived just in time for Mother's Day and I was able to finish my fused glass wall hangings. I am absolutely happy with the final pieces.  Here they are.

In this piece I wanted to bring out the darker colors so I used darker and lighter beads.  I love how it brings it all together.  I also love the color of this chain.  It's almost a peach color.

This amazing picture is delicate and feminine which is perfect for the person it is made fore.  The wire is the same wire as in the picture above, but it is a totally different look, especially because of the light pink or peach colored beads at the bottom, which compliment the whole wall hanging.

 

In this wall hanging, I used a darker chain and I found the awesome focal wire bead and two small glass beads to bring it all together. 

This is why I love to work with glass.  I can make amazing memorable pieces of art for people to enjoy.  I love this new concept; rather than putting your photo in an album, you can now turn it into glass and hang it on your wall to enjoy every day. 

If you like these, check back in a few weeks to see how my other wall hangings turn out.

I'm very pleased with how my wall hangings ended up after firing them in the kiln.  The edges need some grinding and then a final firing in the kiln after that.  So far, I'm am so happy with how these turned out.  I had to send the top part of my grinder back to the company because the grinding pad is stuck onto the grinder.  I am hoping I get it back in time, but I'm not sure.  If not, they will have to be a little late which would be disappointing because of how much time I took to get them ready.

Here are some of my almost finished pieces that will all need grinding and firing one more time.

In the piece above the top picture is approximately 5x5" and each of the smaller pieces are about

1 1/2".  Each of the smaller pieces will be hung with chain.  This piece will be fairly large.  I don't think I would make it any bigger, but the smaller pieces are a little too small and some of the detail got a little lost.  It's still amazing and I can't wait to get it all completed.

In this piece, I wasn't sure how the mountains behind them would turn out, but I love it.  You can see all the detail and the dimensions of the different hills behind them.  I made the top piece 5x5" and the bottom piece approximately 3".  I think the larger 3" piece turned out better than the 1 1/2" pieces in the piece above. 

This one turned out great, but definitely needs some grinding on the larger piece.  In the bottom piece where the wire hoop is, I will hang a bead off the bottom to give it a little something extra.

I chose gold for this one because it brings out the feel of Autumn.  I love nature, and this one is an amazing piece.  I cannot wait until this one is finished and she sees it.  I didn't choose to put a hook on the bottom piece to keep it clean and simple.

In this wedding wall hanging, I was going to make the entire piece white and the champagne glasses in the second picture gold, but the outline of the champagne glasses was too hard to see.  The person in this piece loves antiques and is a very romantic person so the gold reminded me of her.  I felt that gold was more her than silver.  In this finished piece, I think gold was definitely the right choice.

This wall hanging is perfect in white because of the wedding.  It brings out the wedding theme of her white dress and keeps it bright and simple.  This one will be hung with silver wire and silver chain with a clear or white bead at the bottom. 

After I finish the wall hangings, I will certainly post them online.  Not all of them are intended to be given for Mother's Day so you'll see some online sooner than others.

Thank you for stopping by and checking out my work. 

Mother's Day Wall Hanging

This Mother's Day fused glass wall hanging is only about 40% completed.  I'm very excited to see it completed and I've done several test pieces so I'm pretty confident of what it will look like when I'm done.  If you're a fused glass artist, you know that sometimes as much as you prep and test, sometimes things don't work as planned.  I have high hopes though, that it will be finished as I hope it will be.

In the picture above, this is the layout of the wall hanging.  The pictures in glass are on top of a paper towel so you can see them better.  I will be painting each piece and then firing a piece of glass on the back.  Each of the pieces will have a hook in them and they will be hanging with chain to connect them to the piece above it.  The overall length of the wall hanging will probably be about 15"-20" long depending on how long I make the top chain or wire.  I will be using a gold color background and the finished color will be a little lighter than the gold in the picture below.  

In this picture, these are some of the pieces that are getting ready to be fired.  As you can see in the picture with the green background on the bottom right, there is a small hook at the top.  Each of the pieces in the wall hanging above will have small hooks fired in them so I can hang them with chain to the piece above and below it.

 Wish me luck on the final piece.  I'll post it when I'm done so you can see how it came out, so if you're curious too, keep checking my blog.

Pet photo fused into glass for my remembrance pendants

fused sepia slide of my dog

A few examples of my finished pieces.  As you can see pink and black aren't seen well at all.

My old girl who is very photogenic, as seen in the first picture above.

Sepia image of a pathway I photographed.  Very Beautiful. 

This is the picture before it was fused to glass as seen in the picture above.

So what are all these pictures about?  Well, I'm very excited to start sharing some new ideas.

I just took some amazing classes and I've been testing a few of the ideas out as seen in the pictures above.  I've wanted to take my pet remembrance items further and one of the concepts I learned is to fuse a picture to my glass.  It's definitely what I've been looking to do.  In the above pictures you'll see my pictures I put into glass.  I've heard that the sepia or brown color the decals turn look best on white and they're right.  I tried some on clear and took the picture with a white background.  The 3rd picture is what my dog looks like in a color photo.  In the 4th and 5th picture you'll see one of my personal pictures and what it looks like on glass.  I'm very excited to start offering new items to my customers so they can enjoy their personal memories fused into glass.  Whether it's their pet or a place they've visited or their family, this gives me a lot of new ways to improve my work.  In fact, I have already posted a listing on my website if you're interested in this pet remembrance option please click this link and click into the cremation for ashes category http://www.etsy.com/shop/addicted2glassfusion.  At this point, I probably won't be painting on the pet remembrance pendants, because most pets are black, white or brown and I don't think they have the powders I need for the painting, but I will keep playing with the idea to see if it works.  In the pictures below you'll see the same concept I learned in my class, but we painted with the sepia images and they are amazing.  Unfortunately we weren't able to clean  the glass or do any grinding so the sizes of the glass aren't the same, but this will give you an idea how beautiful they are.  I can't wait to show you some completed items and put them up for sale.

Another class I took was screen printing on glass and that was an amazing class.  I learned how to make screenprints and turn my pieces into works of art.  This was completely different and I loved it just as much, maybe more because of how brilliant everything turned out.  Again, keep in mind the pictures below are from my class and we didn't have time to grind them or clean them off before firing, but they are still amazing.  I will definitely be offering some of these very soon on both of my websites.

I will do my best to update my blog, but if you're interested in purchasing items like these, it's best to check either of my websites first because I don't post here as often as I'd like.  Hopefully you'll see some new work up for sale in the next week or two.

Here are the links to both of my websites.
http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/addicted2glassfusion
http://www.etsy.com/shop/addicted2glassfusion

Thank you for stopping by to see what's new at Addicted2glassfusion.

This weekend's craft show

The above pictures are of my booth and a few of the watches I had at this weekend's craft show.  My main goal was to share my pet memory jewelry, picture frames and sun catchers to customers that are looking for a remembrance piece for their pet or loved ones ashes.  It was fun to share this part of my glass work with others here locally.

As you can see I have many items available for sale, most of which are not pictured online.  I will be doing my best to get new items posted online over the next several weeks in anticipation of Christmas, so please keep checking both my artfire site and my etsy site.

Now through 12/11/11, I am offering 30% off any item in my "Sale" category. To receive discount  enter 30PERCENTOFF at check out.  Here's the link to my artfire site.  http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/addicted2glassfusion/0/0/130569
Thank you to those of you who came by to say hello. I can't wait for next year.

Night Lights and wine bottle stoppers Fresh from the Kiln

I'm getting ready for my craft show the weekend of 10/20/11 and I just pulled some beautiful items out of the kiln today.  Here's a few items that came out.

The animal items will all be night lights.  I will be making some drawer pulls to go with them, as well as I've finished two children's clocks.  The lighting is terrible but I was so exited I wanted to put some pictures up for you to see.  The elephant is just as cute as can be.

My next pictures are a couple of Christmas items.  I'm not sure If I'll make them into night lights or if I'll make them into wine stopper tops.  My favorite one is the light green with Christmas ornaments down the front.

I hope you like them or they inspire your own creativity.

Beautiful platters I just finished in the kiln

As I am getting ready for my craft show October 21, 2011, I realized I love jewelry so much, that's mostly what I had.  I did make some new rings on sterling silver ring bases as well as some new mosaic book marks.  I thought I should now trying to concentrate on some platters similar to my platter that was featured in Culture Magazine.  The first two pictures are still in the kiln so they look like they have white in the middle because they're on a white paper in the kiln.  The glass in the middle where it looks white is actually a clear glass that you can see through.  The platter that has blue and green in it is absolutely amazing.  The 2nd picture, where it's just blue and clear is similar to the platter in the magazine, but much larger. I'll be gluing four glass feet on the bottom of the platters so they'll sit just above the counter top, as shown in picture three which was the platter that was featured in culture cheese magazine.  I think these platters will be a great addition to my craft show.

What I'm working on

October is just around the corner and I'll be selling my fused glass at the McQueen craft fair.  I'm still trying to work on perfecting colored bubbles in glass.  I've made a couple fused glass night lights and platters but I have a little more work to do before I'm happy with them. 

The picture above shows one of my sample pieces with bubbles in it. I fused 16 test pieces and this one was my favorite.  I hope to perfect the bubbles and eventually sell it.  For now, I'm just trying to get it exactly how I want it. I've probably tried 40 pieces and several kilns full of glass to get it how I want it.  I've made a couple of night lights with several colors but the bubbles weren't as big as I wanted so I'm still going to make some more.

I was very busy today and was able to start both kilns today.  My small kiln has some pendants that I tried my newest bubble mixture in, so I'll see tomorrow if they turned out.  I also started my larger kiln this evening and it has a beautiful green platter as well as a  beautiful burnt red pet memory picture frame for a friend of mine.  Not sure if the picture frame will turn out because the paper I use to keep the glass separated for the picture to go in, might not come out from the glass.  Last time I fused the green frame, it was extremely difficult to get the paper out. After 30 minutes, I finally did it, but I could reach the bottom of where the paper was. That's because it only went down about 4".  The burnt red frame will have a space for a 5 x 7 picture to go in, which means it goes down 7".  It will be a shame if it doesn't come out because of how long it took me to make it.

I am also making some more of my mosaic pendants. They're in the kiln and it's my 2nd time firing.  I have 1-2 more times to fuse in the kiln before I can call them pendants, but I have some new colors and so far they look really beautiful.

I'll post some more pictures when I have them.