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. 

Project one done, now on to #2

Grrrr.

Well I knew that the project wasn't going to turn out, but it didn't turn out as badly as I thought it would.

Still not usable, but not without some learning value.
I definitely know that I let the glass soak too long, because I had the rounded curve I was looking for on two sides of the baby food container.

If I hadn't let it soak quite as long, maybe the rest of it would have stayed up.

I also learned not to mix projects where you want different results. Did I already say that? I wanted a full on flat fuse with the classic bottle, and I wanted a rolled, rounded look for the baby food jars. There was no way I was going to get both at the same time, warm glass just doesn't work that way.
Oh, and yes, I did already say something similar.
So I'm trying with four baby food jars now.

As you can see I didn't do anything to them except take off the labels. I didn't embellish them or anything.

 I'm using a contour fuse for my firing schedule. I'll post the schedule if the results turn out.
Oh and sorry for any formatting issues Blogger is being weird and I'm not in the mood to try and figure it out.

Wow, that was hard work

I organized my craft room. It was hard work and it took me a long time.
I wish I had taken before pictures so you can see the chaos that it was, but here are some after pictures.

My craft space. Small but functional.

My Yudu all set up and ready to print and my toaster oven ready to cure resin.

My glass crafting space.

Lampworking and scrapbooking.

My Yourstory, glass grinder, and Pazzles


 The other third of the room is Ron's area and it still needs work to be organized. But happily I can get to work and start crafting again.

Nearly a year later

OK, I haven't been involved in my crafting for almost a year. I have been going through some mental problems.
This isn't the forum for me to complain about how I'm doing mentally, this is about my crafting and my selling.
I haven't sold anything for over a year. I have given away some of my jewelry to family and friends because they said they really liked it.
I'm starting a new project. I'm going to try and blog the results as I have them.
My project is reclaiming used glass. I know that a lot of people have done that in the warm glass community, but I'm doing my take on it.
I'm going to try and make some molds for slumping and glass carving, I'm going to try to find objects I can reuse that would otherwise be thrown away or that is being sold for cheep in the thrift shows.
I've gotten a huge amount of glass bottles given to me from SLC freecycle. It has been an awesome resource.
I have started to try and slump some recycled glass, but I haven't worked out the firing schedule yet. I'll continue to keep track of what I've done and what works.
I'm going to start tracking it here, I have to fix up my craft room first. It is a disaster area.
But the whole thing is I'm starting something new, and I'm going to try and keep this page updated with my progress.
Wish me luck!

Am I wasting my time?

I'm not feeling good about my work right now. That's not true, I'm feeling great about my work, I'm not feeling good about selling it. Every time I post a new one I think I'm not going to sell it anyway. I feel like I'm lost in the internet. I know that I have to do something to get myself found. I'm not doing the SEO like I should and I'm not even sure that will be enough to get me noticed. My plan is to post a new pendant everyday, but I'm not being as consistent as I should.

I did post a new one today and you can see it on my Handmade Pendants and Crafts blog. I'm highlighting a fun butterfly pendent. I need to post more for sale, but I don't enjoy taking the pictures, editing the pictures, labeling the pictures, organizing the pictures, and anything else to do with the pictures. My camera isn't the best. I need to buy a new one, but I'm not sure which one does the best Macro pictures.