Glass Fusion 101: Frit Pendants

Hey, friends!  Today I’m beyond excited to share this post with you because, frankly, it’s not every day that this Artsy Mama gets the chance to learn and play with a brand new type of art!  But that, dear readers, is exactly what my sweet, wonderful, beautiful, fabulous Erin gave me for my birthday.  Before we dive in, though, the story starts here, with this flashback choose your own adventure story I found in my inbox on December 14.

erinbday

erinbday2

Does she know me or what?!  I texted her something like this, “B.  No, A.  No, maybe B.  But A…well…ok, definitely B.” Can you tell it was a hard decision?
The hardest part of the whole deal was choosing a date that worked for both of us and for our hubbies to watch the littles.  We settled on this past Saturday, January 4, and it finally came.  Naturally, we needed energy to create, so we made our first stop:

bux

Once we were properly fueled, we headed to the local paint your own pottery shop where I fully intended to enjoy just sitting and painting for a few hours since typically when we go, it’s Little Crafter who does the creating.  But…then something wonderful happened.  You see, the shop changed hands this fall and the new owners, as new owners often do, decided to change things up a bit by offering something new in addition to the pottery.  Glass Fusion.

glass fusion

It took all of ten seconds and a look at the sample pendants on the shelf and I was sold.  Erin just stood there laughing at me because I could barely contain myself as the shop owner started to explain the process.  There are multiple different techniques for glass fusion, two of which they currently offer; one involves filling a mold with fine glass called frit, and the other is a technique called stacking, where you build the pendant using various layers and pieces of glass.  Big surprise, I tried both.  To keep things a little simpler, though, today we’re just going to talk about the moldy kind…I mean, the frit.  Then, tomorrow, I’ll show you the other one.

Step 1 involved choosing a mold in the shape I wanted for my pendant.  I chose a large circle with a hole in it.  Then, the owner told me to fill it with about 1/8 or 1/4 inch of clear frit.

glass fusion

Step 2 was the design layer.  This was the part where I got to use colored frit and make whatever kind of design I wanted.  The frit is about the consistency of sand.  I spooned in some purple and some blue, and eventually some white at the top.

glass4

At this point, I also had the option of accenting it using pieces of glass like what you would use for the stacking technique.  Some, called dots, are just that; little round pieces that will melt to look like one of my favorite things…polka dots!  Others that look to me like spaghetti and fettucine are called stringers and noodles.  In this picture, you can see that I used dots at the top, then added some stringers to divide my top into three sections.

glass fusion

Step 3 was the final step for me; my job was to fill up the rest of the mold with clear frit.  Then, I handed it over to be placed in the kiln.

glass fusion

Twenty-four hours later, it was ready!  Here’s the finished product, which looked just about exactly how I expected it would.

fused glass pendant

Meanwhile, “What about Erin?” you ask.  Never fear, she was hard at work too once I told her that frit wasn’t food.  {P.S. She’s going to kill me when she sees this up here, so it’s been great knowing you!}

glasserin

Honestly {because we do tell it like it is around here}, most of the time she was hardly working.  She was busy giving me a hard time, and quipping, “That’s what she said,” after just about every statement I made.  Yeah.  True story.  Anyway, she was making a frit necklace too…for me!  Erin isn’t much for jewelry herself, but she wanted to play, so she made a round pendant for me.  I sure know how to pick friends, don’t I?!

glass fusion

 When she showed me her finished product, I knew immediately the effect she was going for…something we mutually love.  Can you tell?

glass fusionIt’s the beach!!!  I love it!  Thanks, Erin!  Doesn’t it look absolutely fabulous melted?

fused glass pendant

So, this was incredibly easy and fun to do, and it was officially one of the best birthday presents ever!  It was also totally affordable {which was great for Erin, since it was on her tab ;)}; 2 for $20.

fused glass pendants

if you want to see more about how this stuff looks when it’s finished, I started a new Pinterest board called fused glass where I’ve been {obsessively} pinning all kinds of gorgeousness…pendants, bowls, ornaments, all kinds of goodies.  You’ll notice there that some of those pieces look different from each other; some are the stacked technique, and some use something super fun called dichroic, which is shiny and sparkly and glittery looking.  The place we went to promised they’re getting that soon!

amyerin

Hugs & Glitter,

siggy{& erin}

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16 Comments

  1. What a tremendously thoughtful gift and super cool craft/art. It looks like a lot of fun and absolutely cannot wait to see your final shots. 🙂

  2. First off, Erin has some gorgeous hair!!!

    As for the pendants — how cool is that? It’s one thing to get to paint pottery (a super fun ‘one thing’ at that) but glass fusion? That’s unique… plus you get to wear it. Even better!

  3. THIS PROBABLY A DUMB QUESTION BUT CAN YOU USE YOUR OVEN? THERE REALLY ISNT ANY KILN AROUND HER EVEN THOUGH ITS A BIG CITY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME
    JUDY

  4. Fused Glass pendants are a lot of fun to make! Thanks for including one of mine in your examples. It is truly appreciated.

    Sharon Orella
    SharonOrellaDesigns.com

  5. I just stumbled across this post looking at jewelry on CraftGawker and glad I did..what an awesome post including your friendship, laughs, fun. I really found this written and put together with such an honest real, showing personality in a post is so nice to see, Following now.

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