Pink!

Here's the start to finish on my last jewelry series. Turned out really well I think.

The pile of lots of glass. Lots of clear, lots of pink, little purple, and a tiny bit of blues and greens. Had fun making all the little components (the dots and little layered chunks).

Fired! :0) (a closeup so you can see the detail) The light purple reacted a little with the pink and looks light gray.

A few more firings to thin the chunks out. The original firing left the jewelry blank at about 1/2" thick in the middle. That would make very chunky jewelry! I did do a few circles out of the thick glass.

Cut up pieces. Ready for shaping.

The lap wheel grinder that does the fine tune shaping. I usually grind off my fingernails in this step. After shaping, the glass was fired again and then sandblasted and fired one more time to a "fire polish" to make them all shiny and smooth.Out of the final firing and ready for bails. The donut one had the inside hole drilled out of a big piece and then fired so it thinned out and stretched to a oval shape. Then drilled the bigger hole and shaped, fired again to get the final shape. I really like the donut pieces but they are quite time consuming so I don't make very many of them.

Sitting at the kitchen table gluing bails on and prepping to put in the oven overnight to cure the glue so its super strong. I started doing this step a couple years ago and found the bond is much better. I usually "bake" them on a thick piece of plywood with foil on it so my kitchen smells weird for a while. :0)

Ta-da! The finished pieces. Well, a few of them anyway. The total project made about 35 pieces I think. Made 3 pair of earrings so that's fun. My kiln should arrive in the next week or two! Excited. :0)