I made this in the same pumpkin making workshop I made the glass pumpkin in. I forgot to use the optics mold, so it turned into an apple instead of a pumpkin. Since it was going to be a different kind of fruit, I made a dimple in the bottom, and asked for a green-hued bit. Used the leaf press instead of the optics mold. I really like this.

The first one-day workshop I took this fall was for making glass pumpkins. It was billed as a beginner workshop, which was a mistake, as these are tricky to make. Some people weren’t able to make any. I was out of practice, so I made it easier for myself by doing one that was clear. I love the way the optics mold gave the vine those lines.

I quite like how the colors came out on this one. The yellow frit is opaque, but the cobalt blue is transparent, so wherever the blue overlaps the yellow looks translucent green. Very pretty. I got three colors in one.

This is one of the more successful ornaments I made at the workshop eariler this month. One of the changes they’d made at the MAC glass studio since I’d been there the last time is that the frit is in larger pieces. It makes it harder to pick up, but the colors can be more intense.  I used small white frit on the first pass, and then used larger frit with the second pass, for a nice textural effect. I also spun it a little so that I’d have some movement. The only drawback to this one is a sharp ridge near the loop.

I took another of the glass blowing one day workshops at the Mesa Art Center in early December. I do so love playing in the hotshop, but it’s frustrating that the only one day workshops were available as and listed as “no experience required.” On one hand, I like that people have a chance to learn glassblowing without so much commitment. On the other hand, it’s frustrating to listen to the same introductory lecture for the first 45 minutes of every too-short class when I really want to be playing with molten glass.

My first ball exploded when my assistant, new to glassblowing, blew too hard and popped it like a bubble. This was her second try, and I managed to stop her in time. This looks a little oblong, and it’s a little topheavy, but it has character.

Here’s the finished number plaque that I made the poppy tiles for (shown in an earlier post).  I cut the background green tiles out of stained glass, with the help of my daughters (since ones hand hurts after cutting too many tiles, I needed help.)  Cutting the background tiles was rather time-consuming, but it saves a lot of money to cut them yourself instead of purchasing tesserae from the craft store.

I’d made the general design for this plaque before I made my first poppy tile. First I looked at different fonts until I decided how I wanted the numerals to look. Then I sketched it out on a full-size piece of paper, in the same size as the location it was going to be installed in.  Once I had the poppy tiles out of the kiln, I was ready to cut the white glass to fit the numerals. I didn’t have to be very accurate, since the grout would cover the space between the glass, and the faint lines where the glass broke only added character.

I cut strips of the brown glass for the edges. I used brown because I had a lot of it, and because I wanted only dark colors to contrast with the white numerals. If the numbers were hard to see, the piece wouldn’t be functional, and I’m all about functional art.

I used white mastic to make the best use of the glass translucency.  I made a couple tiny mistakes with the placement of the poppies, but I’m not going to point them out because I’m hoping I’m the only one who notices.  I had some problem mixing the mastic because the bag of dried mastic and the tub mastic mixing latex had completely different directions for the correct proportions. I mixed it first, and it turned out sloppy, like pancake batter, so I used the second directions, and it was too thick, like toothpaste.  In the future, I think I shall use the sloppier directions so that I have a thinner coat of mastic with better adhesion.  I lost a few green tesserae because they didn’t stick very well.  I am glad my kids helped me stick the green tesserae. One has to work fast when the mastic is already half-dried.

After the mastic cured, I mixed up the grount and began spreading it. When you’re spreading grout on a normal tile surface, say, a bathroom wall or a floor, you are supposed to wash off the haze with a strong sponge and clean water.  I learned from this project that that is a poor idea. Because the proportion of grout to tile is so much greater than a normal tiled surface, the water washed too much grout off and exposed the white mastic underneath.  Our better bet was to use terrycloth rags, dried, and just throw them away when they got dirty.

The black grout really made the numbers and the colors of the flowers pop.  I knew I’d chosen the right colors for this. I left it inside for a few weeks so that the grout could cure, and then I asked my husband to help me install it.  We weren’t sure what kind of brackets would be best, but I’d had some “Gorm” shelf brackets from an Ikea shelf that I didn’t use, and we got my dad to drill a larger hole in one side with a drill press so that we could bolt them to the wall.  I thought we’d be able to slide the 1/2″ thick mosaic in to the 1/2″ thick groove, but that didn’t work. Some of the mastic had spilled over in places, and it just plain didn’t work. We eventually bent the brackets out and then bent them back once the mosaic was in place.  So, it’s not going anywhere.

I wanted to cover the metal brackets, so once it was done, I cut pieces of the same brown glass and covered the metal, gluing it on with E6000 glue (which my glass teacher said was ideal for metal-to-glass applications.)  One of them went on at an angle, as the bracket didn’t get bent back perfectly, but you can’t see it from the street.  Of all the projects I’ve done this year, this is probably the one I’m most proud of.

If anyone wants to hire me to make a number plaque for their house, the answer is NO.  This took me a month of work, and if I were to charge a fair wage for time and materials, it would price this way beyond what most people were willing to pay.  But I’ll give you pointers on making your own, for free!

Since I’d made all kinds of green and pink and lavender radially symmetrical canes for the floral beads, and I didn’t want to make any more floral beads, I used up the canes and practiced placing dots on these clear glass forms. I really like the way dots can look when they’re accurately placed.  One can get amazing geometrical designs.  I’m not sure I like how it looks when a striped cane is used to make the dots, but they are interesting (and I got some practice.)

This is what the lampworking workshop I took in August was designed to teach.  You can get very pretty beads if you are good at this technique.  I’m not so interested in pretty, so I only made this one.