Flowers are Fun Anytime...

I LOVE Flowers... love planting them, seeing them grow, tending & encouraging new growth, and Receiving them... they're definitely a "feel good" hobby for me!  So it's a pretty good bet that I'll want to incorporate flowers into my creativity with glass!  For a long time, I had no idea how to make petals, then learned how from an accomplished teacher, Christine Stewart of Australia, during a fused glass mosaics class.  Taking a class to learn tricks is definitely the way to go as you can pick up SO MANY tips to incorporate into your own creations!  So even the Teachers take classes to learn tips & tricks!  :-D LOL

My upstairs bath has been a work in process as I wanted to incorporate purple floral accents.  It was really hard to find purple accents, to be honest!  And it's taken a few years for the bath to really come together with the "right" purple color.  I felt a perfect touch would be to create a purple soap dish!  I've created a few soap dishes in the past, but found this design worked better for me & my bath.  So after practicing & perfecting cutting glass petals for flowers, I decided I would create a pretty Purple Soap Dish with complimentary flower colors I already had in the bathroom.  (It's SO fabulous & feels great to create EXACTLY what you want for your own space!)  So here's the start of my soap dish:

Pink, lavender, and periwinkle flowers on a purple base, with complimenting millefiore glass centers: heart, flower, and angel.  Initially, I was a little concerned about the periwinkle color as you can see it blends in perfectly with the base glass; but I didn't want it to because then it can't be seen after firing.  But then I also knew that the base glass is gold purple striker glass.  What does this mean -- "striker glass"?  A striker glass is one that "strikes"/changes to another color when heated to a high temperature.  In glass fusing, the highest temp could be between 1400-1500+ degrees, depending on the kiln.  So I figured it would be ok.  As you can see, the petals were all outlined, then cut and placed.

This next photo shows the flower petals all sanded, and cleaned up, ready for firing.  Typically, we don't want to leave the black lines on the petals (unless we like that affect) as it will fire into the glass that way.  I liked the idea of switching the pink & lavender flowers & incorporated a different millefiore glass for the lavender flower.  Additional stem lines were added with Glassline Glass Paints so the flowers don't look like they're just floating on the background!  This project was then fired...

And here's the final piece!  You can definitely see the base glass changed to a warm purple, which matches perfectly in my bath!  And the periwinkle flower compliments nicely with the other flower colors!  Here's how it looks in my bath; adds color at the sink & its size fits perfectly...

 

Stay tuned for more adventures with glass fusing at Starry Night Creations, in St. Augustine, FL!