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Jun

10

UpCycling- Creative Recycling

Filed Under Projects, Creative Challenge | Leave a Comment
June 10th, 2008 by Shoozles

Glass needs to be ground with a grinder and diamond grinder bits to make the edges nice and smooth. Problem is the grinder bits wear out and then you are left with something that is not good for the environment. For nearly 9 years now I have been using a diamond grinder and bits. My collection of used bits, is more than I like to say. I refuse to add them to land fill, Knowing things like glass and metal just never break down i just kept adding them to a box here in my studio. I have tried the recycled bits and I have to say not impressed or at least I have not found a good source.

So I posed the Challenge to one of my 12 yr olds(I have triplets so yes I have more than one 12 year old) We talked about how it would not be good to throw them away but most of all what can we do with them now and the possibilities. Grinder bits have a hole all the way through the middle plus they are heavy so they won’t break. Some how my son Sam envisioned something magical “Robots MOM” my son said! That is what we did. We used metal enamel paint, beads and wire. We wired the components all together and robot grinder bits were born and one less piece of non biodegradable junk became art.

Hand painted by Sam (12 yrs old) wired and beaded by MOM- He is so proud and so am I .

Stumble it!

Apr

13

Glass Art Mixed Media

Filed Under Projects | 1 Comment
April 13th, 2008 by Shoozles

Expand your creativity- make art for your home with your fused glass. I love mixing glass with my other loves of art, like paper and fabric, polymer clay, beads, charms and paint, it all makes me happy. Don’t be afraid to take that fused glass further than just the standard jewelry or plates, think outside the box. Have fun exploring new ways to use glass mixing it with your favorite art elements.

What you will need
your fused glass focal piece
fabric
deep frame
glue E600
paper
embellishments
scissors
imagination

This piece was made with a fused glass house that was the focal piece. I stared out with about 35-40 of these little houses all different sizes. I then took some handmade recycled paper that I made and some very cool star fabric from my scrap stash. I always lay the elements out for placement before I begin to glue them down. I glue the pieces with strong adhesive. E6000 works well with the fabric, paper and glass. I glue all the pieces to the base of the cardboard or wooden frame and trim it so it will fit properly back into the frame. It’s really up to your imagination.
How fun is that? Now you have a nice little piece of art for your house or apartment.

Remember to mix it up folks.

Stumble it!

Sep

1

Tutorial: Wire/Pot Melts

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September 1st, 2007 by Lis

In my last post I explained how to fuse images into glass. Another thing I get asked about a lot is the swirly glass pendants that I make, like the one pictured here.

You just need an ordinary clay flower pot, or some high fire wire mesh and you can do what’s called a “pot melt” or “wire melt” - it’s pretty easy. Here’s how it’s done…

Pot Melts

Grab a flower pot, your safety glasses, a hammer and a screw driver. Place the pot upside down on top of some newspapers, and use the screwdriver and hammer like a chisel to carefully break away bits of the pot to enlarge the hole in the bottom. Be careful to leave enough of the bottom of the pot intact so that it will still hold glass inside. In the picture on the left, I have drawn a green circle around the area that I usually remove with the screwdriver.

Cut a piece of glass bigger than the enlarged hole but smaller than the bottom of the pot, and put it in the bottom of the pot, covering the hole. Now get your scrap glass container and load the pot up with scrap glass.

Use kiln furniture elevate the pot above the floor of your kiln. How you set this up will depend on your kiln size and height. Your goal is to elevate the pot while creating as wide an area on the floor of your kiln possible.

Kiln wash your kiln floor. You should also kiln wash the furniture (but not on the pot!) to protect it in case the glass travels farther than you thought it would.

Place your pot elevated on the kiln furniture in your kiln, close the door and fire your kiln to 1700 degrees. The glass will melt through the pot and onto the kiln floor in a circular motion, creating beautiful swirly patterns.

Be sure to let the kiln cool completely before opening the door to examine your masterpiece!

Wire Melts

To do a wire melt (sometimes called a mesh melt) you basically do the same thing as described above, except instead of a flower pot, you use wire mesh. I usually create my own wire mesh using Nichrome high fire wire. I weave the wire together in a spiderweb pattern so that it is strong enough to hold a small pile of glass above the kiln floor and big enough to span the length and width of my kiln. The wire will bend a bit in the extreme heat of the kiln, so make sure your weave is tight.

Make sure your kiln is turned off and is unplugged (metal + kiln elements = electrocution). Using kiln posts, elevate the wire above the floor, just like you did with the pot (kiln wash the posts and the floor first). Stack the glass on top of the wire in the center of your kiln. Make sure the glass is far enough away from the kiln elements that there is no risk that it could melt onto them - this can cause element failure.

Fire your kiln to 1700 degrees, melting the glass through the wire and onto the floor. Allow the kiln to fully cool, and then check out your swirly creation!

Stumble it!

Sep

1

Tutorial: Fusing Images Into Glass

Filed Under Projects | Leave a Comment
September 1st, 2007 by Lis

Something that I get asked about a lot is how I am able to fuse images into glass, so I thought it might be a good idea to put together a tutorial on the subject.

This is an example of the type of thing you can make. It’s a fused glass pendant made in a special process using an original linoleum cut design called “Psychedelic Rabbit” by Etsy artist Marie-Claire.

You’ll need access to a laser printer (I’m using an HP Laserjet 1000) and special decal paper. I get mine from Bel Decal - it’s the 8.5 x 11 clear paper for $25.

The transfer will work best if you have a MICR toner cartridge in your laser printer. You can probably find these on Ebay for around $40.

First you prepare your images in an image editing program. Convert your image to grayscale, then play around with the brightness and contrast to make the image as sharp as possible without losing a ton of detail. Images that are meant to be black and white work best for this - like line drawings, linocuts, etc. Save the image and paste/insert it into a word processing program.

Prepare a lot of images this way, and arrange them in Word so that they are close together but not touching. Change your margins so that they’re as close to the edge of the paper as your computer will allow and scrunch a bunch of images on the page, so that you use as much of the decal paper as possible.

When you have your images arranged and ready, take all of the normal paper out of your printer, so that you don’t accidentally cause a paper jam. Peel the backing sheet off of the decal paper, and put it into your printer so that the shiny side (the side you just took the paper off of) will be printed on.

If you’re not sure whether the sheet should be face up or face down, just do a test run by putting a big X across a regular sheet paper, place it face-up in your printer, and print on it. If the X gets printed on, you know the decal paper should be placed in the printer shiny-side up. After you print your decals, cut them out, cutting as close to the decal as possible. You don’t want a ton of extra decal paper hanging off your edges.

Score and cut your glass (clear and light colored art glass works the best) into whatever shape you want your final piece to be. Make sure your glass is clean and dry. Get a shallow bowl and fill it with cold water (if your tap water is “hard” - whatever that means - or has a bunch of weird chemicals in it, use bottled water).

Put your decal into the water. I usually dunk it under water and hold it there for 15-30 seconds. You can test to see if it’s ready by gently trying to slide the decal one way and the paper the other, holding it between your thumb and index finger. If it slides easily, it’s ready, if not, dunk it again.

Slide the decal off of the paper and onto your glass. Make sure th

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Customer Creations

Member Blogs

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Jun

10

UpCycling- Creative Recycling

Apr

13

Glass Art Mixed Media

Sep

1

Tutorial: Wire/Pot Melts

Sep

1

Tutorial: Fusing Images Into Glass