Scraps

I spent this past weekend cleaning up my scraps of glass, and good grief did I have a lot of them. They were starting to take over my work area, so it seemed like time.

You might wonder: why is there so much scrap? Well, a lot of mine comes from the corners of the glass after you cut out a circle. It's an odd shape that doesn't serve any practical purpose.

One thing I do a lot to get rid of scrap is make pot melts. This is where you put the pieces of glass into a flower pot in the kiln and heat it up until the glass flows through the opening. The potmelt can then be used by itself, as in my ruffle plate and pot melt clock, or it can be sliced and used as an element in another piece, like this one ->

Depending on the size of the scraps, I may cut out some small circles to use in later projects. More often, I'll end up cutting some small squares to keep on hand - it's just easier than the circles!

<-This piece was made using a lot (A LOT) of the squares that I cut up this weekend.

And some scraps of glass are just too small to cut into a square. That glass gets cut up with nippers into little salsa or confetti sized pieces to use for pieces like these:

Fuschia Squares

This 12" Square bowl was made with 200 squares, alternating fuschia on white and white on black.

The squares are slightly raised up, so it has a cool feel to it.

From the bottom, all you see is a black & white checkerboard pattern.

More about Spring Green...

Happy St. Patrick's Day! It's still cold and snowing here, and yet, I feel the need for a Shamrock shake.

I'm still waiting for spring, and still using that Spring Green glass.

The frame on the right is a base of spring green, topped with squares of cobalt blue, topped with squares of spring green. The outside dimensions are 9 x 11, and the inside is 5 x 7.

Below is another green & red candle bridge, and a small 4.5" square bowl that I made by creating a border of spring green and filling in the middle with tiny cut up pieces of various greens and clear.

A Cat in the Kiln!

When a recent batch of glass had finished a cycle in the kiln, and the kiln was still at about 170 degrees, so I opened the lid to cool it down. I left the room for about 5 minutes and when I came back I found this:

That's my Peanut. She cracks me up.

Green & Red

This weekend was the time change. Daylight Savings Time... totally ridiculous really. It’s just Daylight Moving Time. Just when it is starting to get a little brighter in the mornings – a little easier to wake up and get going - let’s set the clock ahead so the evening can be lighter.

I was thinking of protesting, and just operating on Laurette Standard Time all year but I’d hate to have people thinking I was late for things just because they didn’t understand the time difference.

Anyway, back to glass. One of my favorite color combinations these days is red on spring green.

On the candle bridge above, I used a slightly darker shade of red powder than I used on the plate to the right.

The spring green really makes the red pop. Any other shade of green with red would probably end up looking too much like a Christmas decoration.

Feeling Springy

I'm done with winter early this year. I'm ready for spring. Outside it's still cold and snowing. But, even though I'm not a big fan of it, Daylight Savings Time starts this weekend - so there is hope that Spring is on the way.

In the studio, I've been working on making my own spring. Above you can see a recently completed bowl using such delightful colors as Spring Green and Tangerine Orange.

The Bowl is 12" square and about 1.5" deep.

Black & Red Bowl

Here is a shallow square bowl I made using a base of black & clear glass topped with squares of black, red, and grey.

It's kind of a different look for me.

I was using it as a water bowl for the cats, but somebody bought it.