Month: February 2023

Recycled Glass Stained Glass Heart

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I just love this little heart!

After noticing the beautiful texture in a chipped relish dish, I couldn’t resist doing something with it. And, since it’s February, a heart seemed like the perfect thing to do.

I cut a heart shape pattern before doing any glass cutting and held it on the underside of the dish to move around and choose what portion of the dish I wanted to use.

The handles of the dish broke off easily with a wheel cutter and I used my hand held glass cutter to score across the middle and break it in half. I marked an area beyond where my pattern would go and removed excess glass with the wheel cutter so the section I wanted to use would flatten nicely in the kiln.

The heart pattern was traced onto the smooth side of the glass and the tracing was then etched with a pencil scribe. The etched line was filled with black marker to dry. This is a step I like to do when I’m using a glass saw. When the marker is wiped off, it remains in the etched line so you can see it as you cut. In this case though, the black marker was still hard to see with the texture of the glass, so I went over it again with a red china marker and that did the trick. (This works great for dark glass too, just use a white marking pen). I removed all the glass I good around the tracing before using the saw.

After grinding the edges to smooth, the top edge of the heart piece was rounded slightly at the grinder to remove the high textured ridges before firing it again.

The glass was thick so a wide foil was needed. I used two widths of 1/2″ foil and overlapped them on the side of the heart. Then it was soldered up and finished. Completed, it measured 6″L x 4″ W. Surprisingly, it only weighed 4 oz.

I’ll be using this glass some more. I’m thinking a blue version would be nice for Mother’s Day.

I’ve enjoyed making hearts lately and hope to get more made for my Etsy shop and FB page as soon as time allows. 🙂

If you’re new to my blog, Thank You for stopping by. Please feel free to like, comment on , or share this post. Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone!

Inventory Sale Review Part 2

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I’m back with Part 2 of my sale review. It’s 98% images so it will be quick.

Again, I wanted to use as much of my collected treasures as I could before the sale, so everything pictured was made similarly to projects in previous posts. There’s never any set rules when using salvaged and found materials; you do what you like.

https://glassictouch.com/2016/07/11/crystal-garden-chandelier/  and https://glassictouch.com/2016/08/06/salt-shaker-decorative-plant-stake/

I would have to say that the chandeliers and garden stakes were my favorites. They were just so much fun to make. No two were alike and they always sold well at shows. I like to put one together the way I like it, then take it apart to clean and polish all the pieces; always laying it out in the order it went together. One thing I did change was the attachment of crystals. Instead of wiring them on, I made jump rings and soldered all the connections so they couldn’t come loose.

So here we go. There is layout pictures for the first three chandeliers, but not the two in the feature picture.

And now some garden stakes and a couple of the layouts.

And lastly, though the picture is a little fuzzy, a few ring/jewelry trays were put together with lamp parts.

That’s it, all caught up. My garage is so clean and empty now. I’ll miss playing with all those beautiful lamp pieces, but I’ll survive; time to move on. I would like to devote more time to my glass and garden hobby, and I have wall art and furniture pieces in my radar. But, that’s for future posts. 🙂

Have a great week all!

Inventory Sale Review Part 1

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I’m back with the long neglected review of the inventory sale I had last spring. It’s a little different from other posts I’ve written, but we’ll give it a go.

Ready, and wanting, to move on to new things, the main goal was to clear my garage of all the lamp pieces, salt/pepper shakers, and other bits and bobs I had collected over the years; offering some finished pieces and lots of parts for others to create their own.

Here’s a glimpse at a small portion of piles as we sorted.

There’s quite a few pictures so I thought it best to break this into a couple of posts with no detailed tutorials. Things are similar to past projects and created with the stacking method on a threaded rod as I always liked to do, as well as the same cleaning and finishing process, etc.

Last April, I was making what I called display trays. https://glassictouch.com/2022/04/18/tiered-tray-diy-repurposed-enamelware/  and  https://glassictouch.com/2022/04/27/vintage-style-display-tray-diy/ . They were a ton of fun to make so I made some more.  To keep things short and simple I’m going to post a picture of the completed item and the layout of the pieces (if I have it) in the order they were used so you can see how it went together.  My hope is just to inspire since the use of salvaged and found materials would make exact duplication impossible.

A salt shaker topper was a perfect fit for the first one.

A clear glass lamp piece was used to top off another one. Regretfully, I haven’t any pictures for this one and can’t remember what was used to fill the cavity of the pan underneath. I’m thinking maybe an upturned zinc canning lid with a hole drilled in it, but I’m not sure.

I couldn’t pass up the chance to play with the pie pans I had collected before they got away from me.  Some good looking conduit, salvaged from something taken apart ages ago, covered the center threaded rod nicely.  

Two small brass lamp pieces added between the conduit and the surfaces of the pans not only hid the raw edges of the conduit but helped provide sturdiness.  As shown below, the larger of the brass lamp pieces has a ridge and gives the capped conduit a place to seat.

Well, I think I’m calling that a wrap for Part One. I hope it wasn’t too boring, I tried hard to keep it short. I’ll be back soon with pictures of the garden chandeliers and stakes in Part Two. ðŸ™‚

Please feel free to leave a comment, ask questions, like and share. I love hearing from readers.

Stay Well and Stay Safe Friends!