mom's day off...

Yesterday Lynn and my brother Nic took the boys to Six Flags with our friend Gary and his son Jared. The outing meant to feed our budding adrenaline junkies also gave me an entire half day all to myself. You might think I got all sorts of fun stuff done. Ha. While I did manage to get one piece I've been thinking of finished, not much else fun was done. I put away laundry and dishes and other mind numbing chores that take me 200% longer to do these days because my foot is STILL! broken. Even though I would have liked to have done more artsy fartsy stuff it was nice to have some peace and quiet for a little while.

Here's a look at my finished project:





I was able to get out all my noxious chemicals and play to my heart's content! Awhile back I bought a big box of vintage glass slides with the intent of making some larger glass collage ornaments. Finally, with the time and absence of little hands and lungs around, I made one. I really like making these things. Aside from the fun of assemblage you get to play with heat/fire (depending on what metals I'm soldering), dangerous chemicals and did I mention fire? Yeah, fun stuff.

Anyway, with this particular ornament/charm, I started with the back side. I etched the top side of the glass leaving "inspire." and etched the bottom side completely to make the word shiny and milky at the same time. I found a photo via The Library of Congress [thanks to Kathy over at MeggieCat for the link]. First I polarized the image and added fields of color and printed the image onto cardstock. Then I altered the black and white image and printed it onto a transparency. I found some vellum and handmade paper scraps big enough to fit the glass and then layered all the pieces together and sandwiched them between two sheets of glass. I wrapped the glass in foil tape and then layed down a bead of solder, added the jumprings, patinaed the finished product with a copper patina and added the ribbons for hanging.