Watermelon Season

On August 22, 2018 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Fused glass2 Comments

Each week, I enjoy checking out the local farmer’s markets. The produce options this time of the year are amazing – carrots, cucumber, cauliflower (some are even purple), tomatoes, beans – and the list goes on and on. This week, I started seeing watermelon for sale.

Watermelon seems to be the unofficial symbol of late summer. So, I decided to make some watermelon decorations for my kitchen – a fused glass sun catcher and matching display plate.

IMG_2362 (edited)

The sun catcher used clear class as the base layer (with a couple “bites” taken), red transparent glass, green streaky transparent glass, Clover Blend medium frit and white opaque coarse frit. The project was fused using a “light fuse” schedule, max temp 1425.

IMG_2367 (Edited)

The display plate used opaque white glass as the base layer. Red transparent glass, green and white streaky glass, and white opaque coarse frit were used to make the watermelon. The background checkerboard was 1/2″ pieces of black and white opaque glass cut and fitted around the watermelon. The project was full fused and then slumped into a plate form.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful summer so far!!

Happy Independence Day!

On July 4, 2018 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Fused glass, Holidays, QuiltingLeave a comment

FlagPlate

In honor of our American Independence Day, I am posting a picture of a glass plate that I made which combines two of my favorite crafts, quilting and fused glass.

The design is based upon the Friendship Block. The pattern is two of these blocks of different sizes superimposed upon one another to make a single block.

Pattern

It is possible that the resulting block design has another name. If so, I am unaware of it.

Supplies:

Spectrum Blue and Clear Wispy Coe 96 glass, cut to match pattern
Uroboros Clear and White Streaky Coe 96 glass, cut to match pattern
Uroboros Clear and Grenadine Coe 96 glass, cut to match pattern
Clear Coe 96 glass, 7″ x 7″
7″ plate mold

Wind chimes from wine bottle.

On May 4, 2018May 4, 2018 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Fused glass, Glass Etching1 Comment

When I started making fused glass mushrooms, I had to ask friends for empty wine bottles because I generally don’t drink any alcoholic beverages and so we had none at our house. In doing this, I was received several colors of bottles – dark green, olive green, clear, blue, brown and amber. Since the green are the only ones that worked well for mushroom stalks, that left me to think about other ideas for the different colors of bottles.

So, last week when I needed something to recognize an outgoing president of one of the organizations I am a member of, I decided to use one of the clear wine bottles to make another unique recognition item – a wind chime.

Supplies:

Clear Wine Bottle
Kinkajou bottle cutter
Rubbing Alcohol
Adhesive Stencil
Armour Etch Glass Etching Paste
Craft stick
Gloves, eyewear, apron
Drop Cloth
Coe 96 white glass
Heat resistant wire
Wooden Disks/Beads
Chain
Various Beads

Instructions:

1. Following the directions for use, cut the bottom off of the wine bottle using the Kinkajou bottle cutter. I scored and cut about one inch up from the bottom. Smooth the edge with glass file or glass sanding pads.

2. Clean the surface of the glass with rubbing alcohol, making sure to remove all finger prints. Firmly adhere the cut stencil on the bottle.

3. Apply the Armour Etch paste to the glass following the suggestions in my original post about glass etching.

4. Create a wind scope or wind sail. I cut two tooth shapes out of white fusible glass. These were full fused together with a wire loop at the top to facilitate assembly of the wind chime.

5. Using wire and pieces of chain, string together the beads to a visually pleasing length. I used a wooden wheel shape for the striker and a wooden candle cup turned upside down to keep the beads from pulling out of the bottle.

The resulting wind chime creates a pleasant sound and a unique piece of visual art!

Happy Easter, He is Risen! Καλό Πάσχα και Χριστός Ανέστη!

On April 9, 2018April 9, 2018 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Fused glass, HolidaysLeave a comment

Yes, I know, I am not Greek Orthodox, nor am I from any of the countries that observe Orthodox Easter. But, since we were traveling last Sunday, we had our Easter celebration today. And, since Easter is a celebration of Christ’s resurrection, shouldn’t we celebrate every day of the year!

He is risen indeed. Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη!

Prior to leaving for Spring Break, I spent some time making an Easter plate for my kitchen plate holder. I think it turned out really well.

The creation of this plate involved several steps:

Base of plate
- Bottom glass – clear layer of glass measuring just under 7″ square
- Top glass – medium blue outer border 1/2″ wide, green noodle (standing on edge) and varied sized pieces of variety of transparent blue glass in a patchwork pattern
- Light amber glass cut in 5/8″ strips to make the base of the cross
- 7″ square stainless steel form, lined with shelf paper
- Full fused
Pieces of purple transparent medium frit to make grapes full fused (visible on the right side of the stainless steel form in the photo above)
Green noodles and stringer, bent by holding the glass in the flame of a soldering torch
Dove and dove wing cut from thin iridescent white glass
Leaves cut from thin green glass
Cross cut from dark amber glass, slumped over 1/8″ fiber paper to be able to “weave” the glass
Cross, dove, vines and grapes place onto base glass and light contour fused to the plate
Slump in a plate mold.

Dresden Village Fused Glass Clock

On March 5, 2018March 5, 2018 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Fused glassLeave a comment

Wanting to add some color to my sewing room, and make something functional, I decided to make a fused glass clock. Actually, I just needed an excuse to work with glass again .

Looking at ideas on-line, I found lots of pictures of clocks that other people had made (see photo below for some of my favorites). While all of these were great, and any one of them would have been fun to make, I really wanted to come up with an idea that was unique to me.

So, one day while I was looking at some pictures of quilts, I came up with an idea for my clock. The quilting project I saw was called “Dresden Village”. This pattern involved using the Dresden Plate pattern to make a center table mat that depicted houses around a circle.

Since the Dresden Plate pattern involves pie shaped pieces sewn into a circle, I thought it would be an ideal pattern to use for a clock. The circle could be divided into 24 pieces each with a 15 degree angle. Pieced together, the taller houses mark the hours and the smaller houses mark the half hour. To further differentiate the time, I made the doors of the taller houses with black noodles and the smaller houses with red noodles.

The house numbers were printed on photo transfer paper and the windows were dichroic slide paper. Black glass was used to add a roof to each house. Glass Frit of various sizes and shades of green were used to create trees and shrubs in the “Central Park”. The clockworks were added.

Now I have a colorful clock in my sewing room!

Suncatchers for year-round flowers

On January 17, 2018 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Flowers, Fused glassLeave a comment

Another gift recently given was to my younger brother. He grows Dahlias in the summer and they are gorgeous.

Living in Wisconsin, these beautiful blooms are only around at his house for a few months each year. With his birthday coming up, I thought I would make him some sun catchers to bring some color to the winter months.

The background was a single sheet of clear glass, with strips of the same glass used as the hanger. The stems were green noodles, the leaves were scraps of transparent green glass, and the flowers were various sizes of glass frit. The project was fired following a Contour Fuse schedule. Quick and easy project with a lovely outcome.

Prior to firing

Finished project

Glass Votive Candle Holders

On January 14, 2018 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Fused glass, TreesLeave a comment

Now that Christmas and a few January birthday gifts have been given, I can post some recent projects. Today, I am showing some votive candles that I made for two in my extended family.

In November, I completed a four panel fused glass project for my sister-in-law. After making this four seasons picture, I decided to make a matching votive candle that had the four seasons depicted on sides of the glass.

First, I fused together two pieces of clear glass to form the main part of the votive. Next, was to add the trees. Since the votive candle was small, the trees would need to be made from something other than traditional fused glass – that glass would be too thick.

Option 1. Bend brown stringer to look like a tree. I tried this but never could get two trees to look alike.

Option 2. Draw trees with Glassline paint I thought about it and wanted to try something that would look better than hand drawn.

Option 3. Cut trees out of fusible transfer paper.

This is the option I decided to go with. A few years ago, I had used transfer paper to make a sign for another sister-in-law’s kitchen. While printed black, the iron oxide in the toner fuses to the glass with a nice sepia tone. This brown color should work nicely for trees.

Using an older model black laser printer (the toner cartridge needs to have a high iron content), I printed a black square on the Photo Transfer Paper.

Then, I used a paper punch in the shape of a tree to make four tree shaped transfers. Each punched image was then transferred to the four corners of the glass and allowed to dry.

Using medium and fine frit in various colors, the ground and leaves were added to the trees.

Around the same time, I decided to make a votive to match the “Cook’s Kitchen” sign. For this I made grape vines using the tree punch but cutting off some of the branches and turning the direction of the tree. Green confetti glass was used for the leaves and medium weight purple frit was used for the grapes.

The glass was then contour fused and slumped over a metal mold.

Pretty gifts to give to a couple special ladies.

Christmas 2017

On December 25, 2017 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Baking, Fused glass, Holidays, TreesLeave a comment

Today we celebrate the birth of our King, Jesus. Our hearts are filled with gratitude for who he is, all he has done and his great love for us. Yes, Christmas is a special time of year here at the Erickson house. Merry Christmas to everyone!

A Christmas Craft – Fused Glass Ornaments

A Christmas Recipe – Cranberry Honey Butter

1 cup salted butter, softened
1/3 cup dried cranberries, finely chopped
1/4 cup honey
2 Tbs orange peel

Beat together all ingredients and divide into jars. Store refrigerated. Enjoy!

Fused Glass Wall Art – Birds, Butterflies, etc

On December 1, 2017December 1, 2017 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Fused glass1 Comment

Changes to the cabinets at one of my offices left spots with voids. What to do with these spots? Paint the wall and leave the space empty? Hang some pictures? Buy some art for these spots?

Make some art – now that sounds more fun!

After looking at the space and existing decor, I came up with some ideas. And, with a week off for Thanksgiving, I was able to completed these projects:

Three different birds:

A couple dragonflies:

And, butterflies:

https://ericksonsheirlooms.com/2017/12/01/fused-glass-wall-art-birds-butterflies-etc/

The walls at the office still need to be painted. So, these may not get hung until January. But, they were fun to make!

If you are in Minnesota and come by our Burnsville sometime in January, you should be able to see them in person.

Fused Glass Daisy

On November 19, 2017 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Flowers, Fused glassLeave a comment

Last week’s post reminded me that I have not posted about a another four pane glass project that I created for my sewing room. This project was ultimately inspired by two different items.

multicolored daisy

The first was an image of flowers that I saw when looking for ideas to embellish for one of my landscape quilts. The image was a collection of four canvases each with a white daisy painted on a different colored background. I really liked this and thought it would make a good glass project. However, since I had just finished my four seasons tree (shown at the end of my previous post), I wanted to try something other than four panels side by side.

About that same time, I received a birthday card from a friend. This card had only part of a daisy printed on it. This gave me inspiration for how to display my daisy idea – four corners in different colors.

I found a four section frame at Michael’s that looked like a window. After purchasing it, I removed the hardware and spray painted it white.

Since the leaves were green and the center of the daisy was yellow, I decided to use the other colors of the rainbow for the background (orange, purple, red and blue). Originally I was considering hanging the project in a window, so the background glass is transparent. When the project was finished, I realized that it would look better hung on the wall. The transparent glass still looked really nice even though no light is shining through it. Maybe someday I will add some back lighting to it.

For each background, I cut two pieces of glass the size of the individual window pane – one piece of clear glass and one piece of colored transparent glass. These were fused together using a Full Fuse schedule.

The daisy petals were cut from white opaque glass. To add texture to the center of each petal, I sprinkled almond colored opaque glass fine frit down the center of each petal. The petals were Heat Polished (maximum temperature 1300) to round the edges.

The leaves were cut from Uroboros glass – Oasis Green on Dark Green. Each leaf was scored with a curve near the middle and split into two halves. The resulting pieces were then Heat Polished.

One set of leaf pieces and three daisy petals were placed on each background and Contour Fused. The center of each daisy was Tack fused and each pane was secured to the frame with E6000 adhesive. Due to the size of project, each color pane required four separate fusings for a total of sixteen kiln cycles.

Very colorful addition to the wall of my sewing room!