Crafty As L

A few weeks ago, I attended a 3-hour glass fusion workshop at Making Space , run by Elisa Dodd.   Unlike my previous fusion workshop when I made my wave , which was tack fused and textured, this panel would be heated to a higher temperature and be fully fused and smooth. The homework before the workshop was to find a scene that we wanted to make and I opted for a lighthouse and drew my design onto tracing paper. After a few scoring and cutting practices using plain glass, the proper cutting began.   I simplified my design so that I had fewer pieces to cut.  The design was built onto a piece of plain glass, under which was my tracing paper so I could attempt to follow my design.   The cutting didn’t always go according to plan though! Once the basics of the background and building were in place, it was time to play with frit and stringers.   Frit is tiny pieces of glass that can be sprinkled on.   I used it for the clouds, waves and seaweed on the rock...

My Mother-in law had bought some glass vases from the charity shop and wanted to transform them into lanterns to sell at a WI fundraising event.   She then realised that she had no equipment to decorate them with so asked me if I would mind doing it instead.   Of course I didn’t! Two of the lanterns were straight-sided and I’d seen some YouTube demos showing how you could glue the top layer of patterned napkins onto glass.   I wanted to make my own panels so started by cutting white tissue paper to fit and sprayed it with Distress Spray Stains. Once dry, I stamped a variety of silhouette stamps from Lavinia across each piece. Next, using Ranger Multi Medium Matte, I attached each piece of tissue to the vase.   This was rather more difficult than it looked with napkins, maybe because the tissue paper is so delicate. I ended up with a couple of holes and wrinkled areas but there was little more I could do whilst they were wet so they were set aside to dry. ...

This week, Mr L and I tried out a glass fusion taster workshop with local artist, Sue Watson at  Wat’s On Glass . I spotted the workshop advert on a post in a local Facebook group and we were on a day off, so I booked it. Neither of us had done anything glassy before so we complete novices and had no idea what to expect.  To begin, Sue explained about the tools and demonstrated how to cut some greenhouse glass. This is cheap (a lot of it donated from local allotments) and just for practice. We started by learning how to do straight cuts and then moved on to wavy cuts.  After this, we stopped for a cuppa, a slice of cake and a moment to decide what we wanted to make. The advert was to make a sun catcher or similar. Mr L and I each opted for a decorative panel that would stand in a wooden plinth. Mr L chose to make a circular design featuring beach huts and an aeroplane. I was inspired by one of Sue’s works of art on display that featured a wave.   We started by...