Last of the ACEO's

I swear these are the last I will make for a while- well except for the ones on the soldering table board.

It's beginging to look a lot like

Okay, it's not even the end of Summer yet and I'm singing Christmas carols. It's the same every year. Of course every year the mad dash of Back to School, Halloween, Thanksgiving, St Nick and Christmas gets busier, so I try to get the small annoying stuff out of the way first. I've already collected some of the stocking stuffers and the St Nick candy. I figure I'm not the only one preparing ahead so I can enjoy holidays with my family rather than running through the mall, so I just posted this wreath on ETSY. I based this design is based on Tumbling Blocks, a quilt pattern that gives either a 3 D effect or a floral effect depending on the orientation of the diamonds and the color scheme. Here, the three stars are poinsettias and the other red diamonds are buds.

I originally designed this for my mother-in-law who moved to Georgia after a lifetime in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. She took her collection of family quilts with her. I made this to remind her of the quilts and the darker, more intense colors of Christmas in Pittsburgh, while taking advantage of Savannah glorious sunny weather in December.

Annapolis Galleries

I had a few hours to day, so I grabbed the smaller and brighter pieces for a trip to Annapolis, MD. There's an slew of galleries there and I thought I'd try my luck with the owners to see if they'd like to carry some of our wares. After all, we're Maryland based, have a recognizable product line, do it well and generally, we're pretty spiff!
I trolled through the streets with my daughter- Might as well make this a family event- checking out the stock and looking to see if the shop's merchandise was compatible with ;my own. I had a really large purse, sufficient to carry a couple of pieces of glass, brochures, cards and a catalog. Okay, it is a large purse.
I'm not sure how successful I was, since I didn't sign up a gallery. But I did leave cards, and if not this season, perhaps we can get a venue for the next.
Here's a partial list of the galleries in Annapolis. It's a neat town, very art-y
http://www.artinannapolis.com/

Tonight's work in progress

I got into Ballston Art Market, a juried show I've never been in,. It's great news but that does mean I have to get cracking on new pieces or it will be a very small display at the booth. I like the red and white Lemoyne star at left, but am not as sure about finishing the all blue one. In natural light, the pale blue points are really pale, maybe too much so for the mid blues in the piece. I thi nk I like the red , white and blue one because the contrast between the red and white points makes the star look as if 2 individual stars are spinning around each other. The all blue star in contrast, is more visually static.

I trolled the web earlier and found this great and surprising source of inspiration

http://www.historic-american.com/index.html. This is a web store selling antique quilts. Since these are for sale, there are a lot of close ups of pattern and quilt details.

ACEO's Wow

Wow, from something I'd never heard of to a sale in 2 days! wow . And it was just a trifle. I joined the Etsy creative glass guild challenge with the moon light and tree one below, then thought some more and made a couple with little fish glued on to a piece of glass. Really, it's a trifle. Okay, I did ground down a clear iridescent blob, add wire tendrils and make a jellyfish to go with it. I soldered the wires to the edges of the frame and I glued the molded glass fish and the blob on with ultraviolet glue.

It did turn out rather nice . So surprise surprise , i got a sale!

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.