Elegant Fused Glass by Karen: April 2020 Newsletter

April 2020 Newsletter

In this edition:

- Fresh From the Kiln

- Upcoming Events & Sales!

- April Blogs * Elegant fused glass

- Did you know ...

Fresh from the Kiln. I was playing with different pieces of glass and made this little fused glass art piece. I'm not sure what I'll make it into yet but I think it's cute, it's iridized, and it has a bit of depth.

Fused Glass Pendants w/ pinch bails

In my last post I showed some of my fused glass pendants that I drilled holes into. I thought I'd show you some of the pinch bails I used, needless to say I'm pretty much out of bails now. I need to get better at wire wrapping. Anyway, here are some of my pendants with silver plated pinch bails. The …Read more.

Drilled Fused Glass Pendants

Do you want to know a little secret? I really don't like drilling into pendants. Typically I glue on a bail but sometimes the piece is either transparent or they are so pretty on both sides that I just have to put a pinch bail on it. Sadly I can't add a pinch bail if I don't drill a hole …

Fused Glass decals

I love adding fused glass decals to my fused glass cabochons. Typically when I make cabochons I have a box that I put cabochons in that I think would look great with a decal. I then will sit down and look through my decals that I think match the cabochon. Here are a few that I've done recently. On the …Read more.

Fused Glass Business Card holder

I do shows during the year and I always have my business cards on each of my tables. I love showing my business cards off in my fused glass business card holders. I can make them in any color. Here are a few. I also have business card holders made out of recycled bottles. The one on the right is …Read more.

Fused Glass Enamels Pendants

I have probably about 4 different types of enamels, that I've barely ever used. These fused glass pendants turned out great. I painted the backs of several cabochons to see how they'd turn out. Luckily I didn't have to fire them too high. Here are the red cabochons. I love the results! They have such depth. Here are the blue …Read more.

Freeze and Fused Glass

I've had a fun month trying out old fused glass techniques. Freeze and fuse glass is a cool technique. Basically you take powder add water put it in a mold and here is the surprise you freeze it. Once it's frozen you fuse it. Here are some of the pieces I did recently, before and after. They really kept their …Read more.

Fused Glass Spirit Glass

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I made 335 spirit soap dishes. When I make something there is always left over glass. I had quite a bit so I made a few great pieces. First I paired the beautiful glass with white. I made 2 rectangle platters. Then I put smaller pieces of the glass together and made soap …Read more.

Commercial Soap Dishes

I love making custom fused glass artwork but I also making what’s called production or commercial fused glass pieces. I received an order for 335 soap dishes in March and finished it during the quarantine. This is one of my favorite glasses, it's called spirit. It’s so pretty and has a little bit of iridescent to it, plus who doesn't …Read more.

Did you know ...

This section is used to answer any questions you may have or to pass on tidbits of information that add value and enhance knowledge regarding fused glass, metals, or jewelry in general. Let me know if you have anything you'd like me to include.

For this month's DYK I'd like to focus on what I've been doing during the COVID19 quarantine. I haven't gone out a whole lot but about a week after it started I went to Walmart, this was the paper isle, I was so shocked that I had to take a picture.

Some personal negatives because of the COVID19 shutdown.

Trips: I had 4 trips canceled including a business / personal trip to Paris (it was for work but I was going to take a couple of extra days with my sister, we were so excited about it); a glass / personal trip to Florida (I was so happy to go back to my hometown and see my sister & brother - I haven't been to my home in about 20 years); a business trip to VA; and a glass trip to Ottawa (I've been wanting this class for over a year).

Events: Both my anniversary and my birthday occurred during the quarantine so no dinners out, but my husband and daughter made them both very nice.

And of course, Westcliffe, the sale went through and now we officially own our beautiful 5 acres in Westcliffe Colorado. We miss it so much we had a big photo banner (pictured above) of our view made to celebrate. We have it in our garage so we can see it every time we're in the hot tub.

Now for some personal positives, I am extremely blessed.

We're all safe and well.

I worked from home and still have my job I worked every day, I set a schedule and it was a pretty productive time for me.

My son works from home too so he and his family are well.

My daughter came home, and we got to spend time together, she is taking classes online. My favorite part is husband, daughter, and I played games a couple times a week. I lose quite a bit, but I enjoy spending time with them.

My extended family are all well.

Now for some glass positives. Each January I put out my glass goals. As a refresher these are my glass goals for 2020. So, I'll focus on what I've been able to do during the quarantine regarding my glass goals.

• Redo my website.

• Use a new mold every month

• Clean my studio

• Use the products I have

• Make glass projects using tutorials I've have

• Continue to make glass YouTube videos

• Use the glass I have on hand

• Take 2-3 in person glass classes (right now I have Nathan, Marguerite, and hopefully Craig)

Redo my website: My amazing husband transferred my website to a new host and updated other areas of my site. I still need to update a few areas including my webstore, I'll write a blog about it when I do. It takes a long time.

Molds. I recently got some great molds and will be putting some in the kiln next week. Here is a shot of some of the ones I made within the last month.

Clean my studio. As I've mentioned before, I have been working on organizing my glass areas for several months. I don't know about y'all but sometimes when I straighten-up I have a difficult time finding my things. So, I spent time labeling my storage boxes to make it easier for me to find my supplies. *The picture to the left is a collage of a few of my storage areas I've labeled.

Use products I've bought. I've done a great job with this one during the quarantine. I've used my glow paint (little round cabochon), enamels (tree background), decals (unicorn), stencils / frit mix (turtle), screen prints (fox), modeling glass (squirrel), etc. I've also used my drill (pendant), tumbler (pendant), sandblaster, etc.

Make glass projects using tutorials I've purchased. I have a lot of tutorials, some I've paid, for but even more are free. I've done a few during the quarantine including freeze and fuse (fish), press (flowers), screen printing (mandala), frit mix (sea horse), etc.

Continue to make fused glass YouTube videos. I've done several videos this year and here is one more video with the focus on some items I've finished recently.

Continue to use the glass I have on hand. This s a definite. Obviously, I haven't gotten new glass so everything I've made is with glass I have including what we call scrap glass (glass left over from artwork I've created). I used a lot of my Vitrigraph too. Everything in the 3 kiln shots are all things I've had for a while but didn't have the time to use.

Take 2-3 in person glass classes. Well this one didn't work out for me. My classes with both Nathan (Bottom left, Florida) and Marguerite (Upper left, Ottawa) were canceled. So far, my class with Craig (poppies right) is still on. I hope I'm able to take this class Craig is brilliant and I've wanted to take his poppy class forever.

I hope that y'all are safe and have used your free time to do something that you love and were able to spend quality time with your family. Please stay safe. Colorado stay at home order expired on the 27th so we went out to Garden of the Gods. Such a great day! I so love Colorado!

Thanks for taking the time to read my latest updates.

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In addition to my Fused Elegance and Elegant Fused Glass by Karen websites, I'm also on Pinterest, YouTube, Etsy, and Artfire.

You can also contact my via email: elegantfusedglass@gmail.com

All Fused Glass photos and blogs as well as my flame are copyrighted 2020.