Spun Sugar Fruit Dish

Large Spun Sugar Fruit Bowl

I love commissions, particularly when the customer asks for colour combinations that I would never have thought to work with.  This 30cm fruit dish has been made from clear, leaf green, chartreuse green, fuchsia, cranberry, coral and light orange Bullseye glass.  Who would of thought?

Before Fusing

If you would like to commission me to make you a totally unique piece of glass please contact me via my Folksy shop

Bad Birdy

Scandi Birds

I love making these Scandinavian-inspired birds in rainbow colours and they sell out at fairs and events. They are made from transparent Bullseye glass with fused gold paint and have a copper wire hook to hang them in the window. 

Glass birds are so pretty and here are a couple I would love to own. 

Shane Fero

Oiva Toikka

But occasionally, glass in the kiln doesn't behave as it should and can slip, fracture or just not perform as it should. Something that ceramicists can identify with too! Here is Bad Birdy - you can see where the clear and coloured glass has parted company which means this birdy was consigned to the bin. 

Bad Birdy! 

My Birdies are available for sale at my Folksy Shop and you can also follow my birdy inspiration on Pinterest. 

Retro Glass Commission

Retro Glass Dish

I love glass commissions and I receive most of my commissions via my Folksy shop where I have a large range of my different styles in glass. This dish was commissioned by The Cotton Potter because she liked the colours of the dish below but wanted something bigger for the coffee table. 

I wanted to show Emma (The Cotton Potter) the shape of the dish so I fused and slumped a float glass test dish, just to check that she was happy with the shape. 

Float glass test piece

I used some graph paper to chart the design and planned out the colours on a grid.  Once I had cut the glass to size I would need the graph to help me place the coloured squares accurately onto the vanilla and clear glass surface. 

Coloured glass tiles on graph paper

The next stage was to place all the component parts together and put into the kiln on a full fuse programme. The glass I am using is Bullseye 2mm opal. I never compromise on quality so it has to be Bullseye. 

Glass dish on kiln shelf prior to fusing

Once fused, the glass is washed and dried then placed back into the kiln for a second firing.

Fused glass ready for slumping

Finally, the fused piece is placed into the slump mould and fused at a lower temperature to create the finished dish. 

TaDa!

If you would like me to make you a dish to your specification please email me HERE 

Fresh from the Kiln Today

Honeycomb Dish

I got a real buzz when I opened the kiln this morning and saw that this Honeycomb dish had slumped into its mould perfectly. 

Made from clear and transparent coloured Bullseye glass, this dish is made up of a gradation of squares and rectangles, moving from greens into blues. It's great fun to make - first I flat fuse a grid of clear glass then, once cooled, layer greens and blues before refiring.  The "holes" created from the grid then form into rounded honeycomb shapes. 

This dish will be available for sale in my Folksy shop soon. 

Labyrinth Glass

Blue Labyrinth Glass Vessel

I have a huge tub of clear Bullseye cullet left over from other glass fusing projects and, although I regularly smash up pieces with a hammer, I can only use so much frit!

But, by laying the long pieces onto a flat kiln shelf and overlapping the pieces, I have formed a circular shape that slumps into a round dish mould. Layering the glass is a bit like playing "pick up sticks" and I intersperse shards of transparent coloured glass to create depth and rich colour. 

Labyrinth dish - prototype

I really like these vessels which have a great textured surface whilst retaining the fragility of glass.  The coloured glass slumps down on the clear glass to form shapes and links that hold the entire piece together. Opening the kiln door after a firing is really exciting to see how the glass forms into hollow shapes and dips. 

Medium Labyrinth dish in warm colours on white and clear glass

These unusual and beautiful dishes are now available in my Etsy shop HERE

Make Your Own Glass Dishes Workshop

The next Glass Fusing workshop at South Square Centre in Thornton, Bradford will be on Saturday 22nd September and students will have the opportunity to make their own fused glass dishes, using both Bullseye and float glass. 

This workshop is for all abilities so, if you have never cut glass before why not come along and give it a go? Students will make three glass dishes in different sizes:

1. float glass with copper inclusions

2. Bulleye glass trinket dish

3. Bullseye glass deep dish

You will have step by step guidance and help with your design if you need it. Class size is small, no more than eight students will be there and all equipment and materials will be provided. 

To find out more about this workshop and how to enrol by clicking HERE or emailing HERE. I hope you can make it. 

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.

Commissions & Collaborations

Working to some-one else's specifications on a commissioned piece of glass can be a either a joy or a nightmare. Fortunately for me, most commissioned glass has been a happy experience.

It helps immensely if the customer has an understanding of the versatility and the limitations of fused glass and that the customer can convey the idea so that I can visualise the glass. The perfect customer is also one who will come back and ask for alterations that are workable and not impossible.

Most of my designs start out with a doodle or a drawing in a sketchbook. If working with color is the main element of the design I use watercolors to translate colors onto the page. Although not a perfect match, the transluscency of watercolor paint is the closest I am going to get to transparent glass. These designs were for a commission for quiltmaker Carolinasquirrell who makes the most amazing strip quilts from the selvedge edge of bolts of cloth. She wanted two sun catchers in transparent colored glass based on the strip quilt design.

After emailing my initial designs and color schemes we finally came up with the design of colors in blocks of three with the metal hanging wires fused at a corner of the glass so that it hangs at a right angle.

Here is the finished design for both quilt sun catchers. They measure 4.5" and are made from transparent Bullseye glass. I really enjoyed the experience and look forward to working with Carolinasquirrell again in the future.

You win some, You lose some...

In a previous post, Float Glass Products, I raved about the exciting new stuff I had bought that is COE82, making it compatible with float. Whilst the colors of float glass are disappointing (compared to the vibrancy of Bullseye glass) I had high hopes that these products would help me to make new, innovative glass designs at a fraction of the cost of COE90 glass. Here's what has happened so far...



Clear bubble powder: I was hoping for large, blistering bubbles such as the ones I get in my sushi dishes but the bubbles came out more like a rash. Unperturbed, I made another tile with lots more bubble powder (see below). If you look carefully you wlil see that the larger bubbles have stress fractures in them.



Below: clear bubble powder experiments with other bubble powders.
Curious! The one of the left is clear and turquoise bubble powder. The clear powder appears to have stripped the turquoise of any color, leaving it a dirty gray. The one on the right is clear bubble powder mixed with red bubble powder. It has also stripped the red color from the bubbles. I'm blaming the clear powder but, as I am still experimenting with this, I could be wrong.



Below: bubble powder stud earrings with clear and pink bubble powder. You can see a faint sheen of pink around the bubbles. They do look unusual in the fact that the bubbles look as if the glass is under water but, as I am an "in-yer-face" with color kind of gal, I will be working on this to make it more colorful.



Transparent frit: because colored float is slightly disappointing I was expecting the frit to be a bit wishy washy. Instead, I am quite pleased with the results.
From left to right: First one is frit mixed with clear bubble powder. again, it's turned a horrible grayish color, like burnt ash.
Second one is amber, orange and red frit between two pieces of float glass. It looks quite good close up because it has tiny air bubbles trapped inside.
Third and fourth ones are both frit placed between and on top of the glass. The image doesn't show it clearly but these pieces have a lot more depth and color to them.



Below: amber, orange and red frit earrings. The transparency makes them look almost liquid. I'm quite pleased with these and they are available for sale in my Dawanda shop.



Silver and gold glass sheet: this glass has a coating of gold or silver and it has lots of pre-made scratches that make a pattern on the glass. (It would be good to be able to buy it as a solid metallic color too). Here's what I did with it.



Below: various glass nuggets fused with gold and silver coated glass. The ones on the left have been fused with a cap of clear glass. The gold and silver coating has burned out and the glass cap has devitrified. Not good! The ones on the right have been fused with the gold ands silver coated glass on top of the clear glass. Although it looks much better I didn't get the shrinkage in the kiln that I was expecting so I have since cut the glass shapes to a smaller size.



Hearts of Glass. These glass hearts have been hand cut and fused by me, Glassprimitif. They are made from float glass (coe82) with a coating of gold or silver glass. Each one measures 1.5" (3cm) and are available for sale at Glassprimitif on Etsy.

Float Glass Products

At last! My glass order is finally here. All these goodies are co-efficient with float glass (coe 82-84) and I am already experimenting with them.



Shown here: two sheets of "precious metal" glass in gold and silver, five jars of fine glass frit, three jars of glass bubble powder and a bucket of glass "tangles". The tangles looks fabulous and I hope to make some dishes based on sweet shop candy with them. They are like hollow twisted glass stringers, but a bit thicker than the normal stringer.
Not shown - two pens of "liquid" stringer in black and white and two nibs.



Below are some examples of float glass fusing products including a slumped dish made with different colored frits. I could have bought float glass millefiori too but the colors are rather disappointing. I think I'll wait until the technology for float glass can create colors that equal Bullseye or murano.



Anyway, I will be posting all my experiments (good and bad) here on my blog so please stay tuned!

More about Sources of Inspiration

Anything can become a source of inspiration for design. It can be a color, texture, shape, abstract, realisitc, organic or man-made. I am fortunate that my daughter works in an old fashioned sweet shop and looking at the many jars of sweets, stacked in rows, is a great source of inspiration (not to mention the delight in eating them).
The colours of these licorice torpedoes make them so appealing to the eye. The combination of their glassy look and synthetic colours were the inspiration behind this glass candy dish. Fortunately, Bullseye makes opaque glass that reflect the artificial brightness of this candy and placing the different coloured glass squares together was great fun.

I'm not a big fan of candy - I prefer chocolate myself but I am rather fond of licorice. Again the bright colors of Licorice Allsorts proved to be a source of inspiration, particularly as each bright color is bisected with black.

I have attempted to make these Allsorts cufflinks slightly more sophisticated by using deeper or more subtle colors than those in the candy, including turquoise blue, red, vanilla and soft blue. I hope that the "fun" element in the design hasn't been lost in translation. I really like these cufflinks and they look great on a white dress shirt. The studs are silver plated.

Finally, this dish is again inspired by candy but the colours are slightly different. Instead of opaque glass I have fused transparent glass onto white. By separating each coloured glass piece with a tile of white I prevent muddy colour combinations occuring. As transparent glass is see-through (obviously) it is going to reflect the colour underneath. Without the white tiles the amber glass fused to green would make a nasty brown, the turquoise on the amber glass would make a dirty green.

All this glass is available for sale at my Etsy Shop. 

Glass Cabochons

Cabochons are actually gemstones that have been shaped and polished rather than facetted. This gives the stone a softer and smoother appearance than facetted gemstones have. Most cabochons are oval or round in shape.
Fused glass cabochons are glass nuggets that have not been made up into jewelry yet. Like the gemstones they also have a smooth, rounded shape which is due to the firepolishing they receive in the kiln. Once at full fusing temperature all sharp edges smooth down as the glass first pulls itself up and then slumps.


Buying fused glass cabs is a great way to create your own jewelry as they have many possibilities. They can be set, like gemstones, in precious metal or metal plate pre-formed settings to make rings, earrings, pendants, brooches or cufflinks. By grinding a ridge along the glass with a dremel (drill) they can be wire wrapped and they can be glued to bails or cufflink posts. Cabs can also be set in precious metal clay (PMC) or glued to magnets or even fused to compatible glass art.


All my cabs shown here are compatible to Bullseye (COE90) glass. They are available in sets of 4, 8 or 9 at very reasonable prices and all shipping is free. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5116357&section_id=5094061