Worry Stones

When I was little I was a real worrier.  My innocent, over active imagination would worry up ridiculously impossible scenarios. So, one day I bought some 'worry dolls'.  Every night I would whisper my worries to them and tuck those fears tightly away under my pillow.  Admittedly,  I did worry that I had missed out some crucial information when passing on my worries but I liked having a quirky little way to settle my childhood anxieties before bed time.  It was this memory that led me to create worry stones.  I created five different coloured fused glass stones, each one for something different.  Green for health, yellow for happiness, pink for love, blue for protection and purple for harmony.  I got my mum to pen a cute little poem to go with them and they come in a little velvet pouch.  They have proved popular with kids or as a quirky little gift for a worrisome adults.  Check them out on my etsy page >here<

An update on the kerplunk! bowl

So I fused the strips together.  They fused nicely  and the thickness of the strips was just right but it looked a bit sparse.  I could have done with a few more strips of glass.

 I knew it wouldn't  look great after I saw the full fuse because it'd need more pieces to fill it out and make it look more bowl like but I slumped it anyway.  That's the thing with glass and kiln work, it's always a bit of an experiment and you never know for sure how things will turn out. 

I'm not completely disappointed with the outcome but its not as nice as I'd pictured it in my head.  I thought it'd be a bit larger and really edgy looking.  It's a nice bowl though with it's own little quirks.  It'd make a nice candleholder for a big church candle.  I've put it up on my etsy page so if you do fancy a charming little display bowl or candle holder, click here.  It could do with a loving home ;-)

Kerplunk!

I've just started a new bowl.  I made a similar design last year and wasn't too sure what I thought about it at first but I had a lot of positive comments on it and after a while became quite attached to it.....then it sold! So I've decided to make another one.  I'm doing it in clear this time cos I think it could have a bit of an icicle look about it which could be pretty cool (pun intended!)  I cut out some thin strips of Bullseye clear irid 3mm glass and arranged them in some kind of random fashion.  I like how it looks before it's fired, it reminds me of the old game kerplunk.  It's gone in the kiln on full fuse now so I'll let you know how it turns out.

Just a little scratch....

I had a stall in Caerphilly Castle a little while back.  When you have a stall there you're allowed to drive your car on site to unload.  I used to like doing this cos it made me feel important.  I don't anymore!

It's a tight squeeze manoeuvring through the historic monument that was very obviously not built for cars.  At one point I had to do a three point turn to let another car out and that 's when disaster struck and I accidentally scraped my car on a low iron fence.  As I started reversing a heard a big 'eeeeeee' noise that left a real hideous scratch on my car.  It wasn't the best start to my weekend but luckily it wasn't an indicator to my time at the castle and I had a good time there.

Success at last

I don't wanna jinx it but I think the fire polishing worked! They came out clean and mark free. Yay! I've still got more to fix but I think this will do the trick.  I can finally get those damn troublesome spoons out of my hair.

Update No. 2

I'm making progress with my messed up spoons.  I'm determined not to let all the glass and hard work go to waste so my next plan of action is gonna be fire polishing.  I'm gonna grind all the manky, ugly bits off, sand them down with a coarse sandpaper then a finer one, then a finer one again then I'm gonna put them back in the kiln for a fire polish that will melt the glass just enough to smooth out the top layer.  I'll let you know how I get on!

Spoon Update

So it turns out it wasn't the alcohol causing the marks.  I think it was caused by grinder markings and because I was rushing a bit, instead of giving them a proper wash I was just wiping with alcohol and not giving a good scrub which didn't clean them up as much as they needed to be.  But I've had a few come up clean nowvso, fingers crossed, I can salvage the others :)

Warning! Alcohol is bad for you!

I've been up and filling my kiln up at 6am most mornings this week.  I've got a couple of lovespoon orders to get through and things just seem to be going wrong.   I did a batch of six spoons that I wanted to get done as soon as possible.  I'd cut them all out and thought they were going to turn out good.  In my attempts to try and speed things up a bit I thought to myself  'alcohol is drying, I'll clean them up with that before I put them in the kiln' So I put a bit of isopropynol on them.  Big mistake. It left a residue on them that even after dremmelling it off and refiring twice again didn't get it off, wasted my time, effort and money and generally caused me a whole load of stress.  The moral of the story; don't use alcohol! It is bad for you!!

Mould Attempt No 3

Today I've been attempting to make a mould again.  I've made a model out of clay, am gonna make a latex mould out of that one then fill that up with melted modelling wax then use that model to make a plaster mould.  That way i'll be able to keep the latex mould to fill again and again to make the model exactly the same each time I want to make a new plaster mould, and I intend to make lots of them.  Fingers crossed this will work! 

Help Needed

I'm in the process of making my own moulds for my lovespoons.  Right now it takes me a long time to cut just one so I'm trying to cut that down by using moulds instead.  Problem is I haven't got a clue what i'm doing.  I've read a bit about mould making but I'm just stumbling along, trying to figure things out for myself.  It's not been much of a success so far.  I'm using a mixture of plaster,  grog and flint.  Anybody out there able to lend me a slice of their glass fusing wisdom?  Any help is much appreciated ;)