Glass – Page 6 – Sherry Glaab

Sea Glass Mirror – notes

So the resin was cured enough 24 hours later to take a look at how this experiment turned out. Conclusion: changes need to be made. First, I think I should have kept the sea glass within the edges of the clear backer glass. I can fill in empty spaces with glass chips / frit, or leave them plain resin. I think it is better to tape off the edges so that no resin spills over the edge. Keeping the sea glass inside the backer glass area will allow me to do that. Second, I think I should try to tape off the mirror glass. The resin did not smooth out well over this mirror, so it ends up with a “fun house” look when you are using it. The overall piece is pretty to look at, but not functional.

Seaglass Funhouse Mirror 10"x19" — Seaglass Funhouse Mirror, approximately 10″x19″

I’m not sure how best to tape off the mirror for my second try at this, but I have a few ideas.

Sea Glass Mirror, cont.

The resin was poured on this new experiment with a mirror and sea glass this morning. Hopefully the resin will settle down nicely!

Resining — Spreading the resin with a sponge.

I decided to embellish the top and bottom with some glass nuggets. We’ll see how it comes out tomorrow.

Sea Glass Mirror

I keep forgetting to take pictures / post, but I have been working on a couple of projects using some mirror and sea glass I have had for awhile. First I cut the mirror to size, then I cut some glass from some recycled windows to serve as backer glass for the mirror. That actually took me a couple of weeks as I’ve been busy with other things.

I left the mirror and backer glass overnight for the mosaic adhesive to dry, then arranged some sea glass around the mirror. I’m still deciding where to go with it – whether to add layers of sea glass, shells, other decorative items and resin – or not.

Layer one of sea glass – mosaic adhesive drying.

Hummingbird done!

I’m not normally a warm weather person, but it I have to admit that waiting for a 75 degree day to warm up my craft room enough to pour the resin was getting old! I had a bit of a snafu as on the last day that was warm enough, my resin turned out to be a bit questionable, so I tossed it and tried to buy some at my local Michael’s store. However, they did not have my usual resin (Envirotex Lite) in stock, only Mod Podge brand epoxy resin. I went ahead and tried it and it turned out to be a disaster. Tons of bubbles and it was too thick to spread and ended up being lumpy. I had to pour 16 ounces of Envirotex over the first layer to try to even out the lumps. Nothing could be done about the tiny bubbles, but it is what it is. Hopefully it doesn’t detract too much from the overall piece. I have learned my lesson though. Stick with the products you know and love!

Ready for Resin

I filled in the larger gaps in the blue background and now I think this one is ready for the resin coating. I just have to wait for the weather to warm up a bit so the temperature in my work room is warm enough to pour the resin.

Almost there!

Today I spent some time filling in the smaller gaps in the blue background. The hummingbird window is almost there! Once the mosaic adhesive cures, I will look at the whole window in the light and decide what other smaller gaps still need to be filled. After that, it will be ready for the resin.

Lizard!

Working on gluing the background in place today. I needed to cut some more pieces, only to discover I had a helper hanging out underneath my Morton Glass Works straight edge… Luckily I was gentle with the piece of glass I was trying to shove underneath it. My husband said he heard the scream two levels up in our house. Thanks to the hubs for relocating Mr. Lizard outside in our yard!

I’ve got the larger pieces of blue glass cut and glued down for the background. My next thing to focus on is cutting small pieces to fill the larger gaps in the background.

Working on filling in the background now (everything is glued down).

Blue background

Today I cut the larger pieces of the blue background for the hummingbird and laid them out. I will remove them and glue down the bird and flowers before I commit the background, though. Right now I’m still figuring out the layout options. I am thinking a few more green leaves might be nice, but I want to show it to my friend in whose home it will eventually live first.

More Hummingbird

Starting to fill in with some more vine, leaves, flowers and flower buds. Next will be the blue glass for the sky, which was chosen by the friend for whom I am making this one. Nothing is glued down yet as I’m just in the beginning stages and want to be able to change things if needed.

Hummingbird progress

Today I made progress laying out the hummingbird along with the beginnings of a trumpet vine. Still lots more to do, including some fine tuning of the bird itself, but I wanted to start to try out different layouts for the flowers and vine.