In the rush to prep for holiday sales, I got into “production” mode. Now I’m easing back into “creative” mode and revisiting some experiments I’ve been thinking about trying for a while. A few months ago, I was toying with the idea of making some small 3D trees that could be set in front of a candle. I cut some triangles from some of my old window glass and adhered them together, but didn’t feel like they were heading in the direction for success, so I set them aside. Today I decided to revisit that idea and also an idea of a two sided right angle tree on rectangles of recycled window glass. First, I cut the rectangles for the base / backer glass to about the same size.
I let the glass dictate the size of the project, so all of these items will be slightly different sizes. After cutting, I ground the edges of the glass so it won’t be sharp.
After I ground and dried the glass, I laid the pieces side by side to make sure they matched, as these will eventually be connected at a right angle for stability, and to make a space for a candle.
Next I took some green glass that I cut into branch-y shapes and started laying it out on the two rectangles. I made two sets of these.
After I was satisfied with the layout of the first layer, I glued the pieces to the recycled backer glass with Mac glue. I apply the glue on the backs of the pieces with a small paint brush. The Mac glue can be watered down and still hold well.
There is a lot of glass dust on the glass pieces, so I will definitely need to clean them before I apply the resin layers later on in the process. While the glue dried on the first trees, I grabbed my mock up triangle tree and set it on a foam base so one side would be level / flat.
Next I started experimenting with layouts for the branches for the first side of the tree. I haven’t glued any of these down yet, though. I will wait for another day to do that step.
I’m not sure how it will go pouring the resin on this because I already connected the two triangles, but this is an experiment, so I will figure it out as I go. For the rectangles, I will try pouring each half, then adding the final layer of branches to cover the seam between the two pieces of recycled base / backer glass. That will likely require two layers of resin, as well.