Glass of Sherry
I set this window aside for the past several weeks while I was focusing on making memory beads. Now it’s time to get back to something fun. I found these bright glass nuggets and they just screamed, “Valentine!!” at me. For this window, I used glass nuggets, diamond dust glass chips, tiny red glass globs and some chunks of clear shiny glass.
After posting this, I realized I meant to make some swirls in the background with the tiny red glass bits, but forgot. I guess there’s always next time!
I didn’t break this one!
So it took a lot longer than I planned to pour the background for this cute guy, but it’s finally ready to cure. I used approximately 40 ml of resin, and had planned to do it in stages so I could tape the edges, but I decided to try another approach. I think I am getting the hang of containing the resin a bit better. Next time I should tape the glass before I start the mosaic.
The upside to redoing a piece you cracked is you can improve the things you weren’t satisfied with the first time around. This little guy hasn’t been glued yet, but he will be – hopefully over the next few days. I used a darker color of beach glass because the resin coating really cut down on the color of the first seahorse and I didn’t feel like it stood out as much as I had anticipated. I also noticed that the resin seemed to add a lot of “bulk” to the first seahorse, where I was going for a leaner line. I might have let the pieces float a bit when I poured the resin (will have to make sure that doesn’t happen this time around), but I also elongated this little guy a bit to compensate. I will likely rethink the background / border a bit, as well, though I haven’t figured out where I’m going with those yet.
Once you have one of these windows of your own, how do you display them? My favorite way is to just display them over the inside of an existing window. Most of them fit the space (being old windows themselves). The down side is you have to go through some hassle if you want to open the covered window. However, there are many situations where this is just fine or even desirable. For example, in my bathroom, I have two windows that both happen to be on the front of my house, so if you are standing on my front porch, you could peer right into the bathroom. Not much privacy. So I mounted this Clematis flower in the window over the tub. We can still open the top half of the window if we want, but we usually just open the other window that is in the same room if we want some fresh air. It couldn’t be easier, either – just get a couple (four is really probably best) of inexpensive mirror mounts at the hardware store and screw them into the window trim. The window sill provides support, as well. See below.
There are other ways to do it, but this is my favorite way – easy and very sturdy / secure. Another way is to use eye screws and put them into the wood frame. This method is better if you need to open the window behind the mosaic, but can be tricky with old windows that might not have the best frame.
I found some sea glass I like a lot better (at Bed, Bath and Beyond, of all places!) and couldn’t wait to start the next project. This is all I’ll get done on this one today, though, as I 1) need to wait for the glue to dry 2) don’t have enough resin on hand to pour this and 3) I haven’t figured out what I want to do in the background – or if I want to add shells or not!
