That Girl Has Some Nice Glass

My other big endeavor of the summer has been learning to work with glass. I found a wonderful stained glass teacher right here in my own Lake Ridge backyard! (If you're interested in contact information, let me know and I'll be happy to forward your info on.)

Jeanie is an amazing woman with a HUGE workshop in her basement, so I spent a few evenings at her house figuring out that soldering is definitely not as easy as it looks. I only burned myself once and cut myself on glass twice, so I figure I did pretty well...that was out of four classes!! haaaaaaaaa (She has an amazing amount of patience and plenty of insurance. :)



After getting the basics down, I wanted to immediately work with some of the "scraps" in the shop to create some fused glass. I've seen these types of pieces, including dichroic glass, many times, but didn't realize how fun it would be to come up with my own recipes. This pendant and earring set is my favorite!! I love the aqua color and how the murrini and stringers (don't I sound technical?) melted into each other to create such deep pieces!! I have a few other lovelies, but I also had some not-so-cute ones. Those are my lessons learned...Definitely worth the time to come up with these lovely bits out of a little kiln in a basement! Who would've thought??

I wanted to get back to the soldering iron, though, because it just feels so good to be in control of the heat!! haaaaaaaaa I spent a few hours working with glass pieces, foiling, and soldering to come up with the basic combinations of shapes and colors that I liked. (Only one burn and no cuts this time...haaaaaaaaaa). Then, once they were secured, I took them home and "whirligigged" them with wire and beads to make them more of a JenJudd sort of deal...and here's one of my finished bits...

That girl's glass rocks!! haaaaaaaaaaaaaa