Welcome

Welcome to my Blog. I am always trying to find new and unique ways to express myself through my glass. My work has evolved into my favorite item; pet cremation remembrance pendants. This is where I permanently fuse ashes between layers of glass. My most recent creation is my sepia - pictures in glass, where I take a picture and fuse it into glass. I have also done a few remembrance items with people's ashes which turned out amazing.

My glass can be purchased on either of my two websites
http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/addicted2glassfusion
and
http://www.etsy.com/shop/addicted2glassfusion

If you need something different, please contact me at
addicted2glassfusion@yahoo.com so we can discuss what you're looking for.

Enjoy my blog. Hopefully you'll find something that inspires you.


Some of my items at addicted2glassfusion.etsy.com

Sunday, October 12, 2014

I was referring someone to my blog the other day and I realized I hadn't posted anything in a very long time.  It's hard trying to keep up with all the social networking that helps sell your artwork.  When you think about it, I've got my two sites  addicted2glassfusion.etsy.com and addicted2glassfusion.artfire.com and then you have twitter, pinterest, facebook, blog, and everything else out there.  It's really hard to figure out what's the best source to use.  So, I just plug away and I try to keep my etsy and artfire sites going.

Recently though, artfire did some changes.  It is very difficult to see what's going on.  The images online are huge.  You have to click in the upper left hand corner on "catalog" to see the categories.  The typical buyer would not know this.  The shop looks like it went through a hurricane.  It looks like after the hurricane had moved on, the items are stuck where they landed.  I'm not sure how it looks on my smartphone yet.  I am being told the updates done 10/1 are to make viewing on your phone better.  I sure hope so.  If you are a buyer, I will ask you to bear with my site and for the time being, shop on my etsy shop until things get sorted out on artfire.  I'm not sure I'll keep my artfire site going because it's not really cost effective for me to do so at the present time.  If you go to that site and it's closed, please check my etsy site which is in order and categorized and easy to sort through.

Now for the updates of what's going on.  I've gotten busy selling my supplies.  In fact, I'm so busy, I haven't been able to focus on what I love; making new glass items.  I'm contemplating when a few of my items sell out, not purchase any new ones to replace them. I know I'll continue selling my necklace wires and other necklace findings.  I will keep my square mirrors because I can use those and of course my new fabulous square wine stoppers.  As for all the other items, it just takes a lot of time.  I really want to do what I love so I'm torn at the moment.

 Necklace wires come in a variety of colors, lengths and screw clasp or magnetic clasp. I love the finished look they give my pendants.

Here's a finished pendant using a necklace wire to compliment the colors in the pendant.

This is my favorite purchase recently to use with my glass.  It is perfectly square so it is easy to work with, with my glass.

This is how awesome these bottle stoppers look to decorate a shelf in your bathroom or on a decorative shelf in some homes.  This is a great way to store bath salts in different scents so you can use what you're in the mood for.  I got these bottles at Hobby Lobby and I'm going to take epsom salt and add essential oils to them.  With this display I will be able to use three different scents so I can use whatever I'm in the mood for.  I'm also thing I might do one as a scented sugar scrub.


This is how great the finished wine stopper looks up close.  It is shown in the bottles above and it can be used for wine or any decorative bottle.


Here is the square mirror that is perfect for many craft uses.  I love it because it's easy to use with my glass.

This is a finished mirror with 3mm of glass.  I love this mirror because you can use it for fully fused glass or 1 sheet of glass.  The sides are perfectly square and I round the corners of my glass just slightly to have a smooth finish.

A little about what I've been making and my cremation items.  Over the last year I had been doing many custom orders for cremation items.  Here are some examples of what I have been making.

SOMETHING BLUE
Something Blue Cremation Ring.  This beautiful blue piece was made so the bride could walk down the aisle with her father.
Blue ring with an adjustable ring finding so it can be adjusted.

Hair clip with ashes for the bride to be.  Best part, it can be worn after the wedding too.

This is the same piece as above before it was attached to the ring base.

I love the idea of the "something blue" piece I made, that I decided to offer many colors.  I made a color bar of the available colors so my customers can choose their own colors.  The finished color with the ashes is slightly different than the color bar because I cap the cremation piece with clear glass, whereas the color bar is shown uncapped.


Here is a pink cremation piece I made for one of my customers.  I cannot remember at this time if this was #5 or #7, but I love how the heart sits right in it.  The blue one above bubbles up just slightly.  This is the fun part about my cremation items, it's always a surprise how it'll turn out.  No two pieces will be the same; therefore my customers get unique items.


CREMATION SUN CATCHERS
Last year, my grandfather passed away.  I struggled to make some amazing wall hangings for my family because it was now personal on a different level.  I love how each one came out differently.  The ashes form the walkway through the flowers at the bottom of the piece.  The bubbles are bigger than I like them to be, but these are cremation items made with ashes, not glass, so they tend to be a little different each time.






MY NEWEST PIECES - PENDANTS MADE WITH ASHES
So, now for my favorite items in this posting.  I entered a fused glass competition a few days ago and felt that since my most unique items are my cremation items I should make one for the competition.  Here is what I came up with.  I am so happy with them and I cannot tell you how amazing they are.


This beautiful orange sunset pendant is made with my grandfather's ashes and they form the walkway through the rocks at the bottom of the pendant.  This is the pendant I entered into the contest.  It was the most beautiful.  It represents the freedom my grandfather now has to not feel lonely anymore without my grandmother.  She passed away several years before him.  The birds represent my grandparents in a beautiful place, together again.  This style of pendant is for sale for custom orders on my etsy site.  It will be for sale on my artfire site in the near future.

 This amazing blue and cream pendant is also made with my grandfather's ashes.  It reminds my of my summers as a teenager in Oregon.  I stayed a few summers with my grandparents.  Where they lived, there was the deep woods behind their house.  My brother's, sister and I would play in the woods because it was like it's own world.  When you got to the end of the woods, you would come out onto the sand dunes.  In the distance past the sand dunes, was the beautiful ocean.  This brings me back to my childhood and brings a smile to my face.  This style of pendant is for sale for custom orders on my etsy site.  It will be for sale on my artfire site in the near future.


This is my favorite non cremation item I just made.  I wasn't sure how the end piece would turn out since the green was so dark.  It ended up being one of my favorite non cremation pieces.  This one is going to one of my most amazing friends to brighten her day.

Out of all the pendants I made, this is the only one I will actually be selling.  All of the other pieces are for family and friends.  This is a true beauty with all the sweeping colors in the background.  A friend said the colored parts remind them of the city lights in the distance.  


I almost kept this one for myself.  It's going to be given to a special friend of mine who always is there for me.

I cannot tell you how hard I worked on these pendants to come up with the right colors and it's amazing that most of these took 5-7 firings in the kiln.  They're not quickly made, but they are absolutely spectacular.  I will be making some more and offering them for sale on my website.  In fact I have more pieces in the kiln now.