Fused Glass: Puddles!

Our First Fused Glass Projects <3

Randy and I went to our first class at Creative Escape Glass in Springfield, MO. We were excited about glass fusing, but not sure what to expect. We signed up for two projects on this first visit, frit fused cabs in a mold, and puddles. The artist that helped us make these projects was very fun and helpful, and I stalk her on Instagram where she shares her beautiful pottery! ( I gotta get me one of her cicada mugs!!!) The owner wasn't in the studio that day, but I felt we were in very good hands.

Our first project, pictured above, was frit layered into a mold for fusing. I didn't get pictures, but what we did is we layered the frit into a mold very similar to this one, that had been sprayed with 2 coats of ZYP Boron Nitride to keep the glass from sticking.

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Our second project during this visit to the studio was to make puddle cabs: a two step process where you stack, fuse, smash, and fuse a final time. These puddle cabs will be the featured project for this blog entry.

We started off by cutting 2" squares from bins of scrap glass, so I'm not certain of that color names we used, but I am fairly certain that all the glass is bullseye brand 90 COE.

We used a morton cutting system and a collection of pistol grip glass cutter, grozing pliers, and running pliers (shown below) to cut out our shapes.

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We then stacked the squares and left them to be fused. I don't know what the firing schedule was, as that was done by the studio owner, but here is how they came out:

Randy's puddle is the completely blue tone glass on the left, and mine (Yvonne's) is on the right; I was Not expecting the milky/cream glass to turn this salmon red color when fired, so I have made a note to myself in our own budding glass studio to be Very careful with labeling/storing striker glass separately to avoid these kinds of surprises.

The next step was to literally smash the glass wrapped in a towel with a 4lb sledge on a small anvil. We got a bit of video of the smashing, but as this is my first blog post -ever- I'm not sure how to put a video in, so we'll save that for a future post ;)

After smashing the glass, we used a glass grinder very similar to this one to make so that some of the puddle shards would sit on their side without toppling over. Even with our efforts to make flat bottoms, some pieces still fell over in the kiln while fusing.

We also had prepped some unglazed ceramic tiles with 5 layers of kiln wash, each layer applied in a different direction with a very wide haik brush. This keeps the glass from sticking to the tile, which we were using as a small portable kiln shelf.

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Kiln shelf, Haik Brush, and Kiln wash

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This is how the smashed pieces of puddle looked from the top and side before firing.

Randy's Puddles before firing

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Yvonne's Puddles before firing

We were not present for the 2nd firing of the puddles so I don't know what the firing schedule was, but the term "full fuse" came up a lot.

One of the kilns at the studio that I am interested in investing in for our home studio is the Jen-Ken Kiln - AF3P ProFusion Fiber 16 which I have found a similar kiln online from one of my favorite glass companies, Delphi Glass, with the very nice TAP controller. Hopefully we'll be able to welcome this kiln to the family before too long!

We returned to the studio the following week to pick up our finished puddles, and we are immensely pleased with how they came out! We will be including these First Time Puddles in our Jumbo Craft Along Kits for March, 2020.

Thank you for stopping by!

Like I mentioned, this is my first-ever blog post so I am really excited to start exploring this new medium of sharing crafty shenanigans with yall! If you have any questions or suggestions, please leave them in the comments below, and if you'd like to support our work and join our Craft Along Club, check us out on Patreon