Glass fusion - Pendants

As promised earlier, some of my latest pendants done through glass fusion...


There are two main techniques in fusion:

• Full fusion - examples are the 1st pendant (light green) and the blue one in the middle pic. In this case, all pieces of glass are fused at a higher temperature and it becomes flat
• Partial fusion - the last pendant as well as the yellowish in the middle are examples. Those pendants are fused at lower temperature and the result is that it keeps the pendant just like you design it with all the different little pieces; they just round up on the borders

Next time, I'll try to make some matching earrings. We'll see what I get!

Descubriendo el cristal...

Empeze con las cuentas de cristal gracias a unas amigas (Marta y Candy) que me hablaron de un Groupon que salio en mayo para este taller en el norte de Portland:

It all started with the Groupon (thanks Marta and Candy for tipping me off!!):

http://www.aquilaglassschool.com/

La cuentas son divertidas y creativas. Te puedes pasar horas centrada en hacer cuentas, el tiempo vuela... Creo que es una terapia estupenda para el estres! Al mismo tiempo las encuentro un poco frustrante porque se disfruta mientras las haces pero los resultados no son siempre lo que esperas. Ademas es super dificil hacer varias cuentas identicas; por mucho que lo intento, siempre hay pequeñas diferencias de tamaño o forma.

We started with beads.
Beads are creative and fun to make because you play with fire and melting the glass; it's fun! You can spend hours making beads and not see the time pass... I think it's a great therapy for stress! At the same time, there's a frustrating side to it, specially for beginners like me, it's really tricky to make two beads alike. There are always small discrepancies... either the color combination, the size or the shape is not exactly the same.

Asi que cuando en Agosto salio otro groupon, esta vez para fusion de cristal, me lo saque para probar algo nuevo. Marta y Candy que tambien se lo sacaron, me hicieron esta foto durante la clase:

Then, in August, a new groupon came out for the same workshop place but this time for Glass fusion and... we took it! This pic to the right is of that workshop on glass fusion that we took in September.

Y esto es lo que me encontre al final cuando, una semana despues pase por el taller para recoger la piezas terminadas:

And this is the result after the baking process:


En definitiva, tengo que reconocer que la fusion del cristal me ha enganchado mucho mas que las cuentas. Es facil, creativo, muy poco tecnico (ya que en el taller se encargan del horneado que es la parte mas tecnica) y los resultados son muy vistosos.

All in all, I'll have to recognize that I find the fusion process much more attractive for impatient people like me. It's easy, you just need a little imagination, color combination instinct and very little skills. Plus the results look very professional. So, perfect!!

En el siguiente post os enseno algunos de los colgantes que he hecho desde la clase.

In the next post, I'll share some of the latest pendants I've done...

After a long break...

Hola a tod@s,

Despues de tomarme un largo descanso, aqui estoy de vuelta con nuevas tecnicas y descubrimientos a compartir.

Dos cosas principales que justifican mi tiempo de descanso:

• Mi periodo de pintura: una de las ultimas entradas fue sobre pintura y el descubrimiento de los acrilicos. Bien, pues la pintura me tuvo enganchada durante una buena temporada y como la pintura no es el tema principal de este blog pues... bueno deje de bloguear hasta tener mas cosa que contaros del tema central: los abalorios!! (en otra entrada a lo mejor os enseno algunas de las pinturas que he hecho)
• El verano! Durante el verano, con los dias mas largos y el buen tiempo, se para mucho menos en casa y yo no soy una excepcion. El no parar en casa se traduce en escasez de oportunidades para trabajar en ningun tipo de manualidades... practicamente no he hecho nada artistico durante este tiempo!!

Pues bueno, ahora que ya os he justificado mi ausencia, vamos al grano... Abalorios!!!

Something different: Painting with Acrylics

With the New Year, I've started a new crafting skill... Painting!!!

To be honest, I've never been very skilled at drawing and, well, I'm not very patient when I start something new; I like to see acceptable results fast! With this being said, this holiday's period, while waiting in CDG airport for a connecting flight, I discovered a promising magazine called "Mon Atelier Creatif" (what I got is the French edition but I think the original is a German edition which I don't speak - too bad!) with step by step explanations on how to paint a few different designs using acrylics. The designs were nice and the techniques looked easy enough so I got the magazine and decided to give it a try.


A couple of weeks later and, after a visit to a couple of Art's stores, these are my first two paintings in acrylic (both of them following models from the French magazine):

Feliz 2011!!/Happy 2011!!

After the holiday's break and all the travel craziness in the end of 2010, I'm back blogging!!! :)

So, to start with, here a few of the gifts I created for the holidays (note that the common theme this year was FELT!):

I made this case for i-Pods using a felt sheet bright pick that I measured to enclose the i-pod. Before sewing it, you need to decorate the side that will be the front. To decorate it, I used a small cut of another felt sheet in a matching color (in this case, purple) - I sewed both to the case-to-be and then glued with a hot glue gun a couple of glittering spots. After that, you can proceed to sew the felt case with a matching thread (in the case of an iPOD) don't forget to leave a small opening at the bottom for the headset to connect.

Then I made a bunch of foulard; all similar materials but using different techniques.

The first one was done using wool top and felting it with needles until the wool threads are attached to the fabric used for the foulard. The second one was done using felt sheets in different colors and cutting them in different shapes. I did attached the different shapes to the fabric using the felting needles again.