Trying glass fusing for the first time

I’ve tried glass fusing for the first time in my life, with the helpful guidance of my more experienced friend and crafty sista Maria. The materials she has in her stash is breathtakingly beautiful and fascinating.

Material for glass fusing with different colors, pattern and metallic sheen to them. I was amazed by the different patterns of dots, stripes and swirls that these glasses have. It’s a costly hobby but Maria has built it up for a while now, and she is also selling her beautiful jewelry via Etsy.

Maria showed me how to start, and I took photos while she did this.

1. Score the black background glass with a cutter filled with oil to make it run smoothly (though we used dish soap and water)
2. Use a tongs to break the glass into a row and then
3. use your ruler to score smaller pieces that you can then actually break using your hands (4)!

These black pieces becomes the foundation (canvas) to play on when combining colored glasses or metal patterned glasses in different ways!

I started out with a white background and added tiny left-over glass corners:

Kinda already look a bit like my style… Mosaic scattered around – can’t decide what color to use… hehe.

Making glass jewelry is difficult because as a beginner you have no idea what you’re doing – or what you’re going to get as the result of your session. I was lucky to have Maria as a teacher and adviser, and also got to look through her pile of finished pieces to see what was possible to make. That helped me make some choices about size and combinations as well as copy some of her design ideas that I liked.

There are no rules or patterns to follow which makes glass fusing creative and easy enough, but on the other hand some of the factors that affect the finished product are difficult to master. You have to… yes, as always… practice and try different things many times. You’ll get better results with experience I think. The glass will melt in the oven as it pleases, dependent on heat, air bubbles, time, color, size and treatment with lye.

Our work table. Yummy stuff filled it and this was such a great day to me.

I glued the mosaic in place so that they wouldn’t fall of in the kiln (burning oven), but on bigger pieces you don’t need to glue down your designs. You do need to cover each piece with clear glass though, to make the end result a smooth surface.

The clear glass is placed on top of the sandwich and this makes each piece melt together evenly and creates a nice surface (hopefully).

When we finished our little pieces and everything was ready for the oven, Maria gathered everything together in a plastic ice cream container to be carried out to the garage where the special oven is. Do not try to melt glass in your oven at home, it will not work.

The oven, or kiln, at Maria’s parent’s house, is the smallest I’ve ever seen, though clumsy with extremely thick walls. On a specially bought surface we arranged each piece (not to close to each other) and then placed it inside the kiln, carefully not to have any glasses slide around.

Not a big space, huh? Then we had lunch, knitted some and watched TV for two hours before turning the kiln on – but we had to wait until the next day before we could see the result (the kiln is 800 degrees hot so it’s advisable to not open it straight away.). So we had to wait to see the result, and so do you…

I will post photos of my finished pieces tomorrow!

I want to try everything crafty at least once in my life. I might call it a goal I’ve set up for myself, but it’s more a wish and a drive I can’t stay away from. So last year when my friend Maria learned how to fuse glass I got curious about it of course. I’m grateful to have had the chance to try this without paying much for material or having to sign up for a class. When I’ve tried something once I seldom feel that I’ve had enough so I might try this again if I get a chance.

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