This Saturday, Pinky K is throwing an all encompassing Holiday Party. When she throws a party, one of her requirements is that the guests get a takeaway item. So, for this party, we agreed that we were going to make some fused glass ornaments as the takeaway.
The objective was to come up with simple designs using simple shapes, so that we can easily mass produce ornaments. Also the ornaments were intended to be no more than three inches in height. So, most of these ornaments are between 2 - 3 inches tall.
The first group of ornaments that we made were 5 Pointed Stars. We made some out of glittery green, solid red, and clear glass. The design is really simple combination of like-sized triangles.
The next group of ornaments that we made were Christmas Trees. We used glittery green glass for the tree, and a white stringer to simulate the string of lights on the tree.
After making some extremely simple ornaments, we tackled something a bit more complex. The next batch of ornaments were Angels. The Angels consisted of small circles for the head (yellow/orange) and halo (clear), which were a total pain to cut and grind. The body was a simple blue triangle, and the wings were white half circles.
At this point, Pinky thought we were being too Christmas with our Ornaments, and wanted something festive. So, we did a batch of Martini Glasses. The martini glass was two triangles and a rectangle using clear glass. The olive (green/yellow) was a small circle, which again was a pain to grind. The toothpick is a green stringer. In case it doesn't show in the picture, the olive does have a little red pimento (red frit).
So, Pinky said that we needed to have candy canes. I really dislike doing curves in glass, because I hate grinding. So, cutting curved candy canes was a pain. The base consists of three separate white pieces, two that make the curved part, and a rectangle for the long straight part. Then using solid red, we cut small rectangles and put them in place. The red was used to join the three white pieces. This had to go through a full fused, and they were just cooling down this morning.
Also, in the above picture, was the very first ornament that I attempted, a snowflake. It was a total pain to assemble, which is the reason why there is only one of those ornaments.
So, this brings us to our latest batch, which is yet unfired. I got this crazy idea to do Penguins. The Penguins consist of a solid black eggplant shaped piece for the body, with a white oval for the chest. There are three solid yellow triangles for the feet and the beak. There are two solid black triangles for the wings. I couldn't come up with anything good for the eyes. We don't have any white frit. White stringers didn't seem to be working. So, I might have to go to the glass store to get some white frit.
Here is a picture of most of the completed ornaments, on our kitchen counter. We are probably going to epoxy bales or copper loops on the backs of the ornaments so that they can be hung. I would drill them, but I am very concerned about cracking the glass. Sigh.
I think tonight, I will be staging some Stars of David and maybe some gift boxes.
I hope you enjoy our latest efforts...
Kappy
