Been off my game

I haven't done any crafting lately because we have been letting a friend stay in my craft room. I started a pot melt project tonight I hope I don't cook her out of her room. It does get kinda warm when I melt glass. 

I'm doing a pot melt. I've got some glass that is just being wasted because it didn't do what I wanted it to when I first slumped it. Now I'm melting it in a terracotta pot and on to some thin fire paper. It should turn out to be sort of a rectangle of melted glass. People do pot melts to mix beautiful colors and create lovely effects. I would like to do that, but I'm still just trying things out so I'm not going to waste good glass on the project.

I didn't take any pictures. I didn't think anything I did was picture worthy. First thing I did was cut my glass into smaller pieces. Next I loaded them up in my terracotta pot and put the pot on three kiln posts to lift it above my kiln shelf. I set the kiln at the levels that were recommended and hit start. 

About forty minutes into the project I realized that my set up wouldn't work for a pot melt and I went in to change it. I put on my heat resistant glove and laid the kiln posts on their sides and put the pot back on. I next realized that there was a chance that the glass would stick to the kiln post so I put some thin fire paper on top of them. Now I think the thin fire paper is too close to the pot, but I also learned that my kiln is at a level where my heat resistant gloves don't work so well. They work, I would hate to feel the heat from the pot without the glove, but it was warm enough that I'm going to leave well enough alone.

We'll see what happens, this guy is going to learn to fly or hit the ground. 

Getting ready to Etsy

I've cleaned up my craft room only to start make a mess again that same day. I need to get into the habit of putting things away when I go in there instead of just dumping them on the floor.

I finished photographing my coasters. I used a slightly different method than the one I posted awhile back. I don't know if I'm going to update my entry or make a new entry and put a link to the better way of doing it on the original entry. Choices, choices.. I'm just not in the picking mood.

Here is my coasters:

As you can see, I added felt to the  back instead of the little feet. I also sprayed them down with varnish to give them a shiny but non tacky feeling on the top. On the original one I did the little feet got stuck on the tacky modpoge and split apart leaving a residue on the top of the coaster. I also used it to test out the varnish originally. I found out then you needed a layer of modpoge over the top or the paper that is on there starts to wrinkle  and the coaster is wasted.

Cutting and messing up

OK. I'm going to try some recycled glass bangles now. I have a blue vase/cup? that I picked up from a local thrift store for $0.50. I made sure that it was big enough to fit over my hand and now I'm cutting it into smaller pieces to make the bracelets from.
I got this new toy called the G2 Bottle Cutter. I'm trying it out for the first time.
I was able to make a nice even score, and I haven't been able to do that by hand.

It did scratch off a little of the paint, but I don't think that will end up being a big deal.
Sadly after doing the breaking process the cut didn't come out evenly. I don't know if it was my fault, or the glass's.

 The second try came out even worse, I'm not going to add a picture of that because I just don't feel like it, so bla.








I guess all there is left to see is how it will turn out after firing. I'm not going to cut the glass anymore because I don't want to go through the breaking process again and it is so uneven that it would just be a chore to cut it some more. I'm just going to see how it fires and decide what I'm going to do with the excess glass when I'm done.

Change of location

We've moved into our new house! it is smaller than the place we were renting from my mom, but it is better laid out, holds the temperature better, and it belongs to us. The cats are getting used to having less space, they are used to having a sun room, a dining room, a living room, an office, and a full basement with extra crawl spaces to explore. Because we want to use the office/craft room for a tax ride off, we are locking the door and not letting them in there so they only have the kitchen and living room to hang out in. Poor fuzzies.

This move has put a small damper on my crafting, I don't have an outlet for the kiln. I might start working on some more beads, though. I have some that need to be annealed but I don't have as many as I would like and I want to have a variety of beads to chose form.

I'm doing a Valentines Boutique to support victims of violent crime. I'm excited because I learned about Square and how I can use it to take credit cards at the shows. They take 2.75% pluse $0.15 as a fee, but it is less than buying a credit card machine and paying the monthly fee. We ran the numbers and I'd have to sell a lot of pendants to cover the cost of a traditional card reader and I really think this is the way things are going.

Trial and error

Well I learned something today. I've been trying out my Dicro Slide and I've figured out while it looks cute, but pale on the light colors, it looks beautiful and striking on dark colors. I tried it on a purple I bought the other day and it came out a wonderful chameleon color. From one angle it is a brilliant blue color and from another it is a golden green. I could have done better with the hole punches, but still, I like the results. I'm going to try it out on my dark red next, and maybe my clear green.

I'll post pictures of it on my Handmade Pendants and Crafts website when I get the chance to take pictures, I'm in the process of moving so I don't know if I'll have a chance anytime soon. I guess I could do it while I'm not able to sleep.