I've Never Fused Glass

In my quest to do new things, the website Groupon has been a good place to find inspiration. For anyone who doesn't know what it is, they offer discounts on various products and services in different metropolitan areas. I ran across one a while back for a glass fusing class and thought it sounded cool and it was also an affordable 12 bucks, so I bought one for myself and my friend Anna.

On May 10th we decided to head on out to the class. You had the option of a wind chime, a wine stopper, 3 pendants, or earrings and a pendant. Anna chose the first option and I the last. The instructor went through the basics of glass fusing first. Basically when the glass is heated it all wants to mold into a flat plane with 3 layers being the thickest areas and one layer the thinnest. She set us up with our various size base pieces depending on our project and then it was up to us to add the details with the top two layers.

I immediately had an idea for a turquoise watery type look, but when I started to put it together the instructor said that it may not turn out how I was expecting. That was definitely the hardest part of the class - not knowing what you were going to get until you came to pick it up 10 days later. By this time my patience was long gone, so I just put random colorful dots on a clear piece and hoped for the best.

Anna had a beautiful idea for her wind chime with the top part being very geometric with blocks of different colors, and the chimes a clear background with different colored flowers. The other ladies were very impressed with Anna's creativity (as I always have been as well). There was a mother and her three grown daughters who were hilarious. The one daughter "bless her heart" had no creativity what so ever and was still trying to decide on what to do by the time Anna and I left. It didn't help that her mom and sisters were hating on the different ideas she had.

The idea of the class was sort of relaxing. In fact, Anna and I didn't realize until after we ate dinner next door at BT Burgers that we didn't take a single picture of the experience. So we took some random photos of the place, but not of us actually creating.

Overall, I don't love my designs. I just didn't have the patience for messing with rice size pieces of glass for my earrings. I may not wear them, but it was fun, and I got to spend some quality time with a good friend. And that is worth 12 bucks any day!