Glass of Sherry
I was cleaning this one up to take a photo and I managed to crack it. 🙁 I wasn’t very happy with the color of the beach glass I used for the seahorse (after covering it with the resin, the color really washed out), so it won’t be the end of the world to redo it.
When I’m ready to “make things permanent”, I start mixing / pouring the resin. After that, I spend a couple of hours tending it to ensure no ugly bubbles form on the finished surface and to decorate a bit more. Tending the resin equates to blowing it with a heat gun and moving things around with wooden pokers, as well as wiping up any excess (especially around the edges) with a sponge on a stick. I remembered to elevate this piece so I wouldn’t have the pain of removing the paper again.
Above: Just poured. Below: after a once over with the heat gun.
Below: Finishing the decorative details (shells, glass frit, glass chips, etc). Also making minor adjustments to positioning.
Now it just has to sit for a couple of days to cure, then I will clean up any drips, etc from the sides / back and get a better photo.
7 3/4″×14″ Dimensions
Started putting together this beach glass seahorse – still trying to figure out how to do the background. Will there be an edge? Will there be sand dollars? Leaning toward just glass / glass frit / glass chips at the moment. Nothing is glued down yet.
Remember when I mentioned that I forgot to raise these off the paper when I poured the resin? Well, one of the three paid the price when I was working on cleaning the paper / resin off the back. 🙁 It now has a hairline crack that might not bother some, but it bothers me. So these are the two survivors.
7 3/4″ square, 7 3/4″ × 14″ unedged and 9 1/2″ × 30″ in old window frame. The 14″ rectangular piece will be a seahorse. No idea on the others yet. I will likely have to do some additional prep work on the frame for the old window, as the paint is chipping as I try to clean it.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to decorate these for a few days. Going to pour the resin now and do some experimenting….. These three are somewhere between 7 and 8 inches square (have not yet measured since I cut them down).
Update: I forgot to lift these three pieces off the paper before pouring the resin. I guess I will get to find out what it’s like to clean off paper and resin from these when they are cured. Also, I only used 4 ounces of resin to do all three of these.
Success with my first attempt at breaking down the old window to use the smaller individual panes (in this case, approximately 7 3/4″ by 28″). Still a bit of curing to do, but I think I’m happy with it! Awesome green (recycled origins) art!
One nice thing about these smaller pieces (this one is ~7 3/4″ by 28″) is they are a lot quicker to come together. Today I finished the background glass and poured the resin for this one. Once it cures, I’ll get some better photos.
Because this piece doesn’t have a frame, I had to hang out for a couple of hours to “tend” the resin around the edges to make sure the glass didn’t float around and the resin didn’t form ridges.
I always have a hard time choosing a starting point. This afternoon I stood over this moving the glass around for an hour. I pulled out the zinc framing came I have and discovered that my came saw still works (definitely a good thing), but I think I will try framing after the piece is complete, if I use it at all. I might go the frameless route and try out some special glass mounting hardware.
Using old windows has its pros and cons. “I got most of mine for free” is the major pro, along with the charm, no need to add a frame later, and some weather resistance factored in. Being able to recycle / reuse is a major pro! The cons, however, can be tedious and time consuming. I do not enjoy the process of prepping the old window. The whole time I’m working on cleaning up the old frame I’m wishing I were engaged in the creative, decorative process instead. Prepping old windows to a usable state, while dependent on their condition, generally involves at least the following steps:
People at the last few craft fairs I attended also didn’t seem particularly thrilled about taking home a large window, so I started wondering if the prep work was worth it at all? The frames are heavy, although they are really convenient for mounting the finished product in an existing window (check out this post for an example of what I mean).
My husband suggested I try using just the glass from the old windows, so I embarked on my first attempt to remove the panes of glass from one of the old frames. First I chipped all the old glazing out from around one pane. This wasn’t too difficult, but it was pretty messy, and afterward the glass was still very well connected to the wood frame. I ended up breaking a corner off of that piece of glass trying to extricate it. I then changed tactics and sawed through the wood above the pane of glass, then gently knocked at the frame with a hammer until it came away from the glass. After a couple rounds of window cleaner and some scraping with a razor blade, I have the below sheet of glass. I have some zinc came I can use to frame it when I’m ready. I just need to decide if I should do that first or last (I’m leaning towards first).
The resultant pane of glass (in this case) is 7 3/4″ x 28″. Still a lot of scraping and clean up of the glass, but it’s a million times better than painting! I did a lot of scraping on the above to get it to the point it needed to be for the next step.
