Sunday evening

Well after the ACEO was so well received I had no choice but to make a larger version of the moon and the silver tree. Unfortunately, my daughter likes it. A lot. So another item not going to go into the inventory this week!

The ACEO Challenge

So I belong to the Creative Glass Guild of Etsy, a friendly group that meets online to promote glass in general. There are lots of great jewlers and fused glass artists on it, but not too may stained glass mavens like yours truly. For August, they have challenged us to create ACEO, those collectible mini cards of original art for we who love the stuff, but cannot afford large pieces.

I came up with this mini evening landscape . The glass is a wonderful opaque steel blue and white combo, the moon in the upper corner is iridized and the wire work tree is silvered . Not too bad for a few hours work. Hope the group likes it. http://www.cgge.org/challenge.aspx

Tiffany Lamp fabrications link

A great site with lots of pictures of an artist restoring and creating Tiffany lamps in Germany. http://www.tiffany-lamps.de/Customers_Information.html

Another week in Cape May

Spent another few days in New Jersey helping out Mom, so again , not much glass done. I did however take a wondrous picture of a merhorse so that is just grand. Sister and nephew still workingon the house. More small bits of glass up on Etsy. Oh and a wonderful link to the making of a Tiffany shade . http://www.tiffany-lamps.de/Customers_Information.html

See the new hearts on the Etsy link on the left sidebar too.

We're still working on the house . We are always working on the house. It will never end. The house will get nicer and nicer and we will get older and older and it will never end. Sigh.

Ah, the remodeling blues. We're still working on my nephew's house and I have to believe it is almost done. I returned last night from visiting Mom and found that my sister and nephew had indeed done lots: the living roon walls are painted, the dinning room dry wall was up. Nephew busy working on laying a new hardwood floor in the living room. So that's great. I spend most of the afternoon sanding walls. I now know what I will look like with white hair!

It's been a challenge to get this done but it has also been a great experience and will be a terrific investment. SO needless to say, not much glass done.

Etsy and Quilt Shop

I finally figured out how to use Etsy, the on-line craft outlet( see the small version in the sidebar) . I just sold a red heart and am getting a bit of interest in other pieces so that's to the good. Of course I left for the Jersey shore right after the sale so I could not mail the piece out as quickly as I'd like, but that's okay! A sale's a sale!

I got to go to the beach, to the water park with daughter, sister and little ones, and to the rodeo at Cowtown , New Jersey. Yep, for over 53 years there's been Saturday Rodeo just over the bridge form Delaware. Now for those of us who flunked American Geography , Delaware is about as East as you can get! But the Cowtown Rodeo had all the trappings: a parade, rodeo clowns, bull riding, really fast calves that did not want to be roped, bucking broncs and very sore cowboys.

More Flowers for the Commission

Okay, I've a bird, and 2 peonies foiled. We won't mention that the bird actually belongs in another window. I'm getting there.

I've also just figured out how to make one piece hearts. This was a happy accident as I had a scrap of green swirled glass of about the right dimensions. Now to figure out what to do with it!

Building a New Piece

I've received an interesting commission. The client has approved the rough thumbnail sketch and the major glass selections- but she's leaving the details up to me. Phew! The design meets her requirements that this window provide privacy from her neighbors, let in light, and add to a spacious feel in the room.

Since these are South facing windows, I don't have to worry about making the room dark if I use a lot of very saturated color. It's an issue in smaller for North facing windows. The bright and rich colors will give her all the privacy she craves.

By designing a landscape, the window will visually expand the space rather than close it off as a more Victorian design would do.

Fianlly, the right way to make a window is to have a complete cartoon of the design on the table , cut and fit all the peices and the assemble the entire panel at once. I'm not doing that. Since I have free rein, I'm building the fun elements first: the peonies, the birds, the other animals. After I've arranged them in the most pleasing way, I'll fit in the back round. This gives me the ability to tweak the design until the last moment, and fosters last- minute inspiration.

So for the next few weeks( did I mention that this needs to be finished fast) I'll be blogging about this piece and how it is progressing.

Back in the Saddle Again

It's been a while again since I posted , mostly because I'm still working on that house for my nephew. Kitchen is done, he had a barbecue for the 4th, porch is looking good. So it's time to focus on glass again.

I recently posted some glass hearts on ETSY, the craft market site. I still prefer to show our larger panels at shows since one really has to see the pieces to get the full impact- A photo does not do justice to the glass. But for the smaller pieces, where we just really are playing with pretty colors, well, it's okay in a photo.

I make these when I really really really get bogged down with a piece. Right now I'm still drafting the design for a custom window that should have daffodils, a brown cat, peonies, a peaceful landscape and a cherry tree . Okay. It is a large window and the fee will be very nice, but oh it's a big project. So I make these to encourage myself and to have a project done!

Whee, it has been a while

Oh no glass to make, other than repairing 10 lights in small paned windows at my nephew's house.
Since last I posted, the house has gotten new floors upstairs, new drywall , paint and outlets in the children's rooms, ditto in the master bedroom.

Nephew found a shelter that was gutting its kitchen and sending the almost new cabinets to the dump. He salvaged those, as well as a fridge and a vintage gas stove. So his kitchen now has those in it. Of course, before we could install the cabinets, we had to level the floor for the 18 inch tiles we also installed.

We replaced the front and side doors with antique ones.

So what's left to do? Install a pocket door, build out the wall for the pocket door, drywall 3 walls that are in terrible shape, sand and refinish a nice hardwood floor and install new flooring. Whew, I can hardly wait until this is over.

I have spent so much time picking up and returning items to Home Depot that I think they should name a cashier lane after me! I'm on excellent terms with the county dump.

My daughter has not seen me in weeks and my cats refuse to notice me. It is sad. But the house is turning out well.