Price Reductions

It's time to clear out some of my old stock to make way for new glass so I'm having a sale on Etsy and Folksy.



There are great reductions on glass decorations and pendants at Folksy. *Pendants are now half price (reduced from £10 to £5) and glass decorations are £3 for four (reduced from £1.50 each).



Over at Etsy I am having a sale of cufflinks. Reduced from $20 to $15, that's a saving of $5! All cufflinks are made with layers of Bullseye glass and silver plate studs.
Look out for new glass dishes on Etsy and Folksy from January 1, 2009.

* Sale does not apply to all pendants on Folksy, check for SALE item.

Folksy - a New UK Site

This week I joined a new hand made selling site from the UK, Folksy.
Folksy is a Beta site (test) and international shipping won't be available until February 2009 but, from what I have seen so far, it looks good. It has a great selection of sellers including some of my favourites - Buri Boo, Fibrespace and Asking for Trouble. I'm also really impressed with the Making section with tutorials and how-tos and I like the graphics and layout.
However, like all new site there are some teething troubles and I would like to be able to batch my items into sections. But it's early days yet.
Watch this space!

Yet more about collaborations and commissions

My good friend and glass artist Lawatha makes the most wonderful fused glass pendants and her signature designs are beautiful silhouettes in sepia or black on opal glass.

Like most glass artists worth her salt, Lawatha does suffer from copy cats and has found, like most of us, that the internet is not just a great way to get your work seen but it also a great way for others to copy. Now, Lawatha knows that she does not have copyright for "off the peg" designs but it is a bit galling when others use these designs along with her titles and descriptions too.

So I sent Lawatha some drawings I had made of some of MY original artwork so that she could test them and see if they fused onto glass. Here you see my "Circles Tree" design and also "FrouFrou Fish" (our little joke). Like the professional artist Lawatha is, she respects my copyright and has the right to use my designs and sell her glass.

Here is what she made. I was absolutely bowled over by her pendants and I hope they sell really well for her.

If you would like to commission me to draw some original artwork for you please contact me and I'll be happy to discuss it with you.

More commissions and collaborations

I recently received a request from a customer, via Etsy, to make a dish with a red gingko leaf design fused onto it.

I started with some drawings. Deep shapes cannot be cut into glass unless a Taurus saw is used as it will fracture under the stress. Of course, I don't own a Taurus saw, just a glass cutter and a grinder, so I had to plan where I could make cut lines that wouldn't make the glass leaf look "pieced" together. The final drawing was redrawn in thick black marker pen so that I could see the design clearly through the glass.

I made a prototype of the design in float glass so that I could work out any problems before I committed to the final piece. As you can see, I didn't spend enough time grinding the curved shapes on the leaf and the curves flattened out slightly when fused.

Because this is a flat design (the customer didn't want any additional texture or glass blobs) I wanted the actual red leaf to have some depth so I bought a sheet of streaky red and clear Bullseye glass from my favorite glass suppliers, Warm-Glass UK.

Streaky glass is tricky stuff. The streaks of color are random so it's hard to position the leaf design so that the best streaks are used. I only had one sheet so I couldn't afford to make any cutting mistakes. Of course, the best streaks were in the centre of the glass so I have lots of small pieces left!



I fused the leaf onto opal white and clear Bullseye glass and then slumped it into a dish mold. Fortunately the line between the leaf parts has fused closely together and has not made the deep ridge that you see in the prototype. Next, I emailed the image of the finished dish to the customer and awaited her verdict.

Success! The dish was shipped off to Germany and here is her feedback:

"The dish has safely arrived this morning. Simply great! Many thanks."