In my December Newsletter I mentioned that I’ve changed jobs. This is germane to this post because now I won’t be going TDY (business trips) as much; therefore, I am going to have more classes each month (3 or 4). Just like my Valentine’s Couple’s class, I opened this “Your Choice” class to my neighbors. Needless to say, they came out in support of my small business. Again, it was a cold snowy day, albeit I still had 3 people attend the class. All neighbors and yet strangers, and now friends. It takes a lot of work to set up for these classes, so I scheduled one at 0900 and the other at 1400 (2pm). Here is what it looked like after my first class and what it looked like for my 1400 class students. Nice and neat for my students.


As with the Valentine’s Couple Class I always have my liability forms and a free gift. I kept the fused glass hearts as my gift to my students – still so many great choices.



Since I posted pictures of each of my rooms in the previous blog, I thought I’d just post just panoramic pictures of each of my glass rooms; Studio, Finish & Inspiration room, finished room, and Gallery area.




I do not require all my students to make the same fused glass project and they have several choices, here are just a few.


My students took me up on the policy of making different fused glass projects. Kim wanted to make casted doggy paws. So, I showed her how to make 1 then she made 2 more as her fused glass project (the rest in the mold are my paws). Kim also made a dichroic slide magnet for her free technique. The next row are the paws and free technique Kim made. The last row are my samples (for inspiration), and some of my samples. The brown paw is what not to do, the contrast on the brown one wasn’t strong enough.













Kim’s husband, Jeff took inspiration from two of my fused glass dishes and created a beautiful dish, his intent is to use it as a spoon rest. Didn’t he do a fabulous job. His free technique, he used dichroic slide as well and made a fused glass key chain.







This casting doesn’t take very long, and Kim wants to take another class and watched Cindy make her night light.



Cindy is new to the neighborhood and was really excited about the fused glass class. She went on my website and took lots of pictures of what she wanted to make. She made this stunning night light. She used a couple of my pieces for inspiration as well (1st picture 2nd row). She created this stunning nightlight, didn’t she do a stunning job!









As with my Valentine class I offered my students the opportunity to use premade cabochons and add decals, mica, dichroic slide, etc. to create free magnets, pocket charms, pendants, etc. Here are some samples for of each type of waterslide including mica, black – white – gold – colored decals, dichroic slide, and glow-in-the-dark.





Here are the pieces Kim (dichroic slide puppy paw), Jeff (dichroic slide heart key chain), and Cindy (dichroic slide heart magnet) made. Aren’t they beautiful.



I like showing students how to apply the waterslide decals, so I made the following pieces. The heart is a magnet, the rose is a pendant, and the butterfly … I don’t know what do you think?

In addition, there was a bit of room in the kiln, so I made these 2 hearts. Aren’t they amazing! LOVE them.



I love teaching fused glass classes; Kim, Jeff, and Cindy enjoyed the class so much that each of them wants to take another class and I got a hug from each of them. I’m a hugger so this means a lot to me.
If you have any questions or would like to have a private fused glass class, please let me know (elegantfusedglass@gmail.com), all you need is 3 people to create a class (maximum of 5).
If you would like to see more of my fused glass work, please refer to my website Elegant Fused Glass by Karen. If you get a chance, check out all my site and my Elegant Fused Glass by Karen YouTube. If you would like to stay abreast of what I’m up-to check out our newsletter. If you’d like to take a class, please check out the information on my site about my classes. It is published the last day of each month.
Karen