I’ve written numerous posts about fused glass hearts and hopefully you don’t mind. I love making casted fused glass because they are fun and relatively easy to make. I love giving them away and teaching people how to make them. For Christmas I gave these away to my friends.
I’ve also been playing around with the best way to fire polish them and keep a satin finish. Let me back up a bit. When I create my hearts, sometimes they turn out perfect (no flaws or devitrification), like these.
However, sometimes they have devitrification or sharp edges. When this happens, I put them and any other cabochon with sharper edges or devitrification in my tumbler. As a side note we had a bit of cold weather, and this is what my water looked like – FROZEN.
Anyway, when they come out of the tumbler, they have a beautiful, sandblasted look but they also look a bit dingy or dirty. To prevent this, I’ve been testing my fused glass tumbled hearts to see what the best firing schedule is, so they don’t collapse and yet still have a matt finish. The ones below are more of a fire polish i.e., shiny
The first picture is the right from the tumbler, the 2nd picture is fired at 1150 and the 3rd picture is the fired at 1100. I love them look at the last picture, it is satin and yet has a bit of shine for some of the cane.
These hearts are fired to 1200 a bit more satin. I’m really happy with them.
I’ve also added decals to the 3 tumbled hearts (topped row) and then of course I’ve added the decals to fire polished hearts.
I’ve also added Murrini and Millefiori to my hearts.
I’ve also added synthetic gemstones to my hearts. Don’t they look great!
I have almost 200 fused glass hearts, aren’t they amazing!
Which is your favorite heart?
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.
Keeping my kiln warm,
Karen
