As most of you know, I am obsessed with stained glass circles. I’ve created > 100 in the past year, 45 just in the past 3 weeks. In September 2016 I created my first layered glass circles project, consisting of 2 frames of circles bolted together. I love the way the light plays between the layers and creates even more colors.
I met Jim in September 2011. I wanted to make him something cool for Christmas so that year I painted Darwin & Wilber for him on 8×10″ wood block. After meeting my German family & meeting their cat Carlos this past Fall, I knew I had to paint Carlos for them.
For the past month I’ve been super busy at work. It hasn’t left me with much mental energy for DIY or art after work, or even on weekends. Especially since 3 days a week I’m still heading to the Y to put in miles on the recumbent bike. Usually weekends are spent like a sloth on the couch catching up on TV and sleep. But I have been slowly plodding away with stained glass!
Last September I finished my first layered-frame glass circles project. Today I cut the metal frame inserts and soldered a whole bunch of circles into them. I’m not quite finished, but almost!
As you read in Part 1, I ran into some issues with my first attempt at making a stained glass sailboat, including the bottom looking like a canoe, trying to work with solid copper wire, the entire boat falling apart because the solid copper wire was too heavy, and finally the entire thing falling apart again because I soldered the hell out of the seams to the point of insanely overheating them. Oops.
Back in the 1990’s, dad had a catboat. When I started working with stained glass Dad asked if I’d someday think about making him a stained glass sailboat. I decided to surprise him for Christmas this year and make him a stained glass catboat.
Almost exactly a year ago I was busy making stained glass stars for the holidays. I decided to have fun with a few of the smaller ones and decorated them like snowflakes. This year I decided to turn more into snowflakes. I grabbed 5 of last year’s stars & added wire swirls to 2 of them, nested circles to another, and wire triangles to 2 more!
Last year for Christmas & my birthday hubby bought me packs of stained glass from Delphi. Each kit came with a variety of different colored and patterned stained glass sheets. Some are really cool and some are quite unique. I have 4 sheets of what I call “Christmas glass” – it’s clear, red, and green. I decided to do a Christmas project with it this year.
This morning I sat on the couch for 2 hours watching “Hoarders” [one of my favorite shows] and foiling the edges of the 27 stained glass circles I cut yesterday. It takes a while but is always satisfying when it’s done. Then headed up to the girl cave & soldered the edges.
Today I spent 3 hours cutting 27 stained glass circles for my 2nd stained glass circles project. I probably made way too many but better to have too many than not enough!
