Of course there’s another. I can’t make just one thing and move on to the next. This one is black and white. Guess it’s kind of dark to be an ornament but I like the contrasting colors.
This one is a little over 6 1/2 inches long.
A Little Late – An Ornament
Well, kind of. This is my prototype for dangle type ornaments. It’s made out of several beads, the three big beads are hollow. All the beads are threaded onto a stainless steel mandrel and a glass end cap is glued on. This one turned out too dark and even though I used different colors for the hollow beads it’s hard to tell. Next time I’ll go a few shades lighter.
It’s six inches long.
Two More Ornaments
I tried a few more ornaments last night. The first one I made turned out great. The color was nice and dense and the frit showed up nicely. But when I went to stick it in my kiln, I found my mandrel was too long and wouldn’t fit. In my attempt to try to save it, I dropped the whole thing on the concrete floor. While disappointed, it did give me a chance to inspect the wall thickness a bit closer. I’m always afraid that I will make them too thin. After that, I made these two. They ended up smaller than the first one and the frit colors don’t show up as much but I’m happy with them.
I used some kind of transparent frit applied to the outside. The colors don’t show up but I do like the texture. This happens because frit is a different COE than the base glass I’m using.
This one turned out kind of cool. It’s on the smaller side. The colors really glimmer when held up to the light. Wonder what it would look like on a real Christmas tree.
First Ornament
There is a thread on Lampwork Etc. about making ornaments that I’ve been following. Most people use borosilicate glass for ornaments since it is less fragile. I don’t have the right torch for making anything bigger than a bead in boro glass so I tried it with the soft glass that I usually use. Since this was my first one and I didn’t think it would turn out very good, I used a cheap color that I knew could take the heat. Unfortunately, it didn’t blow out to a lighter color. I also put way too much frit on the outside. Also the wrong color frit. The only thing that shows up is the texture the frit got when I blew it out.
Since I didn’t have any ornament caps, I used a cork and glued a piece of wire in for the loop. I plan to make more, the only problem is my kiln is too small so I can only make a few in one torching session.
Mewkittie Creations 