Glass Workshop: Orange & Blue Window Vases

I went back to the Stained Glass Supplies store in Eagle Rock to attend their glass workshop.  On Thursday afternoons, for a fee of $45, you are welcome to use their space to create what you like, and they will fire it in the kiln for you.  The catch is that you have to come with your own glass (or buy glass there).  Because glass was included in the fusing class, I hadn’t had to buy it before so it was a big surprise in going to the workshop to find how expensive it is to buy panes of glass.

Nonetheless, I went back the Thursday after my fusing class to give it another shot because I enjoyed myself and the products I made so much.  This time, I went with an idea in mind: my Aunt Trisha is having her 50th birthday today (Feb. 10th) and I arranged to go down and take her to lunch that day.  Wouldn’t it be a good idea, then, to be able to give her a present of some of the glass stuff/window vases I’ve been working on?  She recently remodeled her kitchen and bathroom, and I thought it would be neat to select blues and oranges that go with her kitchen.

Little did I know that the color range in glass is not too wide.  Certainly, there are some colors, but it seems like only a couple shades in each.  I also rediscovered that glass pre-fusing is a much different color than glass post-fusing.  But, I picked out some clear, light blue, dark blue, orange (which ended up being a very deep orange), and a clear/speckled orange piece.  $80-some dollars later, I was on my way. (Thank goodness you don’t use all of the pieces at once, just pieces here and there…otherwise, I could never afford this hobby!)

I set out and created three window vases.  The first I made into a wave made out of mosaic pieces of glass, the speckled orange representing the foam on waves and the deep orange representing the setting sun. (The picture, taken by Gavin, is upside-down and difficult to tell the pattern I was aiming for.)  This one looked great when I first set it, but then when I had to clean off every piece of glass, I forgot my pattern.  So I did my best to try to remember where everything went, but had a difficult time.

The third piece I did (Gavin did not have a good picture of the second piece alone, so I will talk about the second piece last when I post a pic of all three together) is a smaller window vase and for this one I just did a diagonal stripe one, like I did for one of the vases I did in my glass fusing class.  This one I did not hold much hope in turning out good but, to my surprise, I like this one the most, post-fusing.

The second piece I did (left, in photo) I am the most disappointed with how it turned out.  I have come to like it (like, not love), but this piece did not turn out well, I think, with the full-fusing I did on all of the pieces.  I should have made them partial-fuses, so that the colored pieces of glass would have retained their shape better.  I had really neat, intricate shapes that fit onto the vase and I am disappointed that those shapes lost their shapes and became more blob-like.  But, like I said, I have come to terms with what it is and am beginning to appreciate it for what it is, not what it was.

Anyway, you can tell that at the time the pictures were being taken, that I had begun the process of making them into vases, with the bales being attached at the tops.  It is on my to-do list to get a suction cup so to show the finished product of how the vases look all put together, with a little flower or something put in them.

I am not sure which one I will give to my aunt (or if I will give them all, or let her pick), but I think with the leftovers I might list them on my Etsy account.  Time will tell!