Progress Reports

I'm happy to report that I had a successful outcome of the firing of the batch of 8 Texas Star Christmas ornaments. I'm posting a picture of them and
the next picture of the same ornaments with the pre-cut stars for the completion of the Texas flag look. It's so fortunate for me that Wasser glass pre-cuts shapes that most of us would find beyond difficult to do. These little stars come from Wasser and I love using their glass. I plan on doing a tack fuse to hold these smaller stars in place on the ornaments.

Currently I'm firing the last batch of Texas Star ornaments and Christmas Tree ornaments. This batch of tree ornaments are a little wider on the bottom, at the customer's request. Unfortunately, the picture doesn't show the layer technique I'm using all that well, but the outcome from my first effort was really cool....even if I do say so myself. It was a technique that I learned in the Patty Gray class I took at D & L last month.

For the trees, I stacked 5 different types of glass and as the glass fuses they melt into each other creating a wonderful effect (I think).

The Texas Stars have been challenging. Tomorrow I plan on devoting the greater part of the day to working on the Peace Offering stained glass window. I'm very anxious to see the light come through this one, but then I guess I always am. This window seems special and I'll continue to post my work in progress on it.

Hey Karen....it really wasn't my intent to send snow your way! Boy, it isn't officially winter yet and we're experiencing the harshness of it!

If at first you don't succeed...........

I'm posting two photos of the results from the Texas Star Christmas ornaments, and the little Christmas Tree ornament. The stars didn't turn out. They didn't fuse as I had hoped. I tried a new approach to cutting out the shapes and it just didn't work.

This is my new batch of stars that I'm firing today. I think they should turn out MUCH better and I only have 4 more stars to do if this batch of 8 works as I expect/hope.

The person who requested the Christmas Tree ornament liked it so well that he ordered 4 more. I'll take some additional photos of the next batch as they are pretty cute.

Right now the moral to this story is, if at first you don't succeed (the bad result from the Texas Stars), then try .... try again.

As I was working on these it did seem like I was making glass Christmas cookies. At least these don't have any calories!!!! :)

Christmas ornaments

It's been a busy weekend. Hosting Thanksgiving dinner, putting up the Christmas decorations, working on projects from my stained glass to fused glass.

Here's a picture of Christmas ornaments prior to firing them in the kiln last night. I'm waiting for them to cool so I can see the actual results! The stars are a representation of the Texas state flag and were ordered as gifts for relatives. The lone Christmas tree ornament was a special request.

Peace Offering, my stained glass commission, is progressing and I hope to post a picture of that later today.

Oh yes, and we are in the midst of our first winter storm....looks like we've got 8" of snow and it's still snowing! Perfect day to be home.