Stained Glass Mobiles – Part 2

Just about a year ago I posted about my first stained glass mobiles, and mentioned that I’d made 2 more that same week and would post about them soon.  Well, a year later, and here we go!  I’m trying to clear out my draft folder before the year ends, and get caught up with posting about all the projects I never posted about…

I gave you a sneak peak of my 2 new mobiles at the bottom of my 2018 Projects page, but never wrote about them:

the stained glass frame and mobile i made       

I love them!  And I plan to make more.  I was hoping to have some made for this Christmas, but that didn’t happen.

So last December I picked colors for the mobiles, used my circle templates, glass cutter, and glass grinder to produce 6 circles – 2 large, 2 medium, & 2 small.  In the 2nd photo you can see I’ve already copper foiled the edges, so they are ready for solder:

      

I knew from my first mobiles that I needed 3 rings between each circle:  2 stationary ones and 1 in the middle.  Otherwise the pieces won’t hang straight.  I decided to use a random cat pencil to create rings, because it was the right circumference.  I wrapped my pre-tinned copper wire [copper wire tinted with a thin layer of tin, ready for solder] around the pencil:

      

Then used wire snippers to cut it off the pencil.  It looked like a spring:

i created my own mobile rings from pre-tinned copper wire

Then I snipped off each ring and used pliers to flatten them out into rings:

i created my own mobile rings from pre-tinned copper wire       

I soldered the edges of each circle, then attached the rings.  For the middle pieces I needed a ring on each end, so I marked with a Sharpie where they should go, then soldered them on:

i marked the ring placements with sharpie       

       i marked the ring placements with sharpie

Tip:  always hold the rings with needle-nosed pliers while soldering because they heat up to 400° in mere seconds.  I use a block of wood to hold my circles upright while I solder rings onto the ends:

always use pliers to solder rings onto glass pieces       

Once the rings were on, I washed my circles, then used needle nosed pliers to attach the center rings, linking the circles into mobiles:

       

The red and yellow one hangs in the bedroom & the purple-ly one hangs in the living room:

       

i hung the purple stained glass mobile in the living room window       

I also soldered some rings onto 2 small green circles and gave them to friends last year for Christmas:

       

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6 thoughts on “Stained Glass Mobiles – Part 2”

  1. Ooh — I LOVE the green ones! They look like they’re made of gemstones. Green is my favorite color. I would totally buy these if I found them at an art fair. Just sayin’ …

    Reply
    • Thanks! Well, if you ever wanted to PM me your address maybe Santa would send you one 🙂 Or next time you and Eric drive by my house stop in and I can give you one in person 😉

      Reply

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