Metropolitan

Electra

Toledo Delight

oooh my, I guess my surplus is in plates, simply can't resist buying if I see something that might be useful. You just never know AND when you get in the mood for pique assiette ya can't just order up all the patterns ya want,,, its got to be on your shelf.

I don't want to call my self a hoarder but,,, I love all my tess, old jewelry, half marbles stained glass.

the one item I don't like taking up space and will rarely consider using is vitreous glass tiles. still too many of those floating around my shelves.. live and learn

Same here! I have so much vitreous glass tile, some of it quite beautiful, but for some reason (?) I don't like using it. Wonder why?

I have stained glass out the wazoo. I also have a lot of vitreous glass, which I'm using less and less. I wish I had a ton of smalti laying around, but, alas, that's not the case!
Becky

Vitreous! Since most of my work is for outdoors, I've had to stick to frost-resistant materials. Though now that I'm making mosaic pendants, I'm on a bead craze. I don't want to tell you how much $$ I've spent on beads and stones. I'm looking forward to the weather warming so I can spend time at garage sales. I'd love to start experimenting with whatever I can find.

Alas! I wish I had smalti laying around also! Several years ago, a man down the road advertised on Craigslist that he had smalti for sale. I called him about it and he wanted to sell it all in one lot . . . for $25,000.00. I sometimes dream about that smalti.

one day I'm gonna bite the bullet and order a lb of the transparent smalti... I am always so inspired by Helen Nock's inclusion of it with her slate work! damn stuff looks like jolly rancher candies.

Vitreous not only cuts poorly, it often holds grout in those little pits and ends up looking dirty.. hate it

This post was edited by nicethyme on Thu, Jan 17, 13 at 0:17

LOL. NT and smalti: I bit the bullet years ago and ordered the gold smalti - bought the seconds - think it was from Wits End. W/LOVE to have a bunch of it but am trying not to buy anything - have too much mixed junk on hand. Preference is vintage china cuz it cuts so easily but it's too expensive to buy in antique stores/flea mkts. Never spend time garage saling - not very productive around here.

I prefer china, but I like to mix it with tiles or stained glass. I also add beads and gems and charms. Today my husband and I spent four hours in my garage 'studio'. I told him I felt like we were having a hoarder's intervention! I had so many things in the TBM box that I was never going to get to. I also had some plates, cups and other items like that that I won't use. Some nice stuff, but some I've learned is too thick, or most of the design has a rim under it and I just don't want to deal with it. but it sits on the other side of the garage right now! I don't know if there is any particular thing you are looking for.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ellenmarie Mosaics

I like working with stained glass. Started with vitreous, because the mosaic books with English authors suggested it for projects. They must have a better kind over there because it didn't cut properly or look right for me.

Funny how some glass cuts like a dream and others shatter. May be operator error, don't know.

No surplus here, except the swimming pool colors of vitreous.

I did organize my work space this last weekend. Boy that felt good when it was over.

Good thread. Maybe one day I'll have extras. Susan

Here are two things I have learned about nipping glass that might help.

1) If you are using wheeled nippers, and either or both of the wheels are not tightened down so that they can't wobble, then you can't control the cut. They need to be kept tightened with an Allen wrench -- not so tight as to strip the threads, but tight enough so they are snug and don't move.

2) If you are working with cold glass (such as outdoors in winter) then the glass has a tendency to shatter. I found that out when I was working on the South Austin Music sign on my back porch last winter.

Here is a link that might be useful: South Austin Music sign

My all time fav. is safety glass I love playing around with it.I love stain glass and mirror.I also have a lot of plates and tiles .I have to much stuff all those gone a do .I do not go to garage sale much any more to much stuff. I hate to weed it out keep thing I might need it .I have kinda been in a slump I need to clean my studio so bad and will do when it warms up .It is to cold in my stu.

This post was edited by nanatricia on Fri, Jan 18, 13 at 20:17

Gonna jump back in here to respond to NANA's comment re a slump. Ohhhhhh do I know what that means. I've been in one for a couple months - just don't want to do anything, especially finish that stupid birdbath I built. I've been searching the net for weeks for inspiration. It finally hit about three days ago. Inspired by CAITLANDSGARDENS mixed media on canvas, MARIAN SHAPIRO, in whose project she cut and rolled back a canvas to reveal her focal, on Flickr, another artist on Pinterest (her work on canvas has been removed, or I'd show it) and TEESHA MOORE, an artist I've known about for years - when I took LAURA MIKA's workshop in Dallas I've started a mixed media. I watched TM's videos on her 16-page journal - very interesting and thought provoking - wonderful teacher and I got all fired up to want to try something totally different. Sat down and ordered a bundle of art supplies off the net, went to Michaels for more, and can hardly wait for the shipments to arrive. I also bought Apoxie Sculpt. I've done a page of watercolor, cutouts, doodling, etc. prepared a piece of plywood w/Gesso, and tomorrow w/adhere the paper to the board and mosaic around it. I might end up w/a nice little piece of junk for the trash, but so far I'm enjoying the process. Going dancing in about 15 minutes or I'd be out in the workshop playing w/it. NANA - search the net for new ideas. It helps.

oooh new directions and new inspirations... cool, I want to see it!!!!

I have also been in a slump. I haven't done anything since early December. It's the weather -- it's been too cold to work outside on the porch. I spread out a big towel and nipped up the last two Electra plate I had (see pic) to go around the edge of a guitar. It's supposed to warm up a little today and I'm going to carry it out on the porch and grind the edges and glue them down. This guitar is going to be all "mod" with Lucite geometric shapes (from Sixties earrings) mixed with red, black, and white stained glass. I haven't decided on a name yet.

Okay, I've got a good start on it and a name. "My Generation."

Here's a pic of the Work in Progress (WIP).

ooh that looks COOL ... its gonna be great

Love the modness of it all - and thanks for showing the beginning of the progress.

I was wondering where you got the darling hearts and checked pattern - then looked up through the posts. From your plates!

Never thought about using more recent plate patterns - I'm not much into garage sales because my mother was so obsessed with them. (not meant as a dig to anyone who likes them - just that I was recruited to drive her everywhere.)

Oh, and I brought a heater into my chilly spare bedroom where I work - that really helped with the cutting. Susan

Great start.

My fav tess has gravitated to colored mirror glass, it just has so much BLING! And since there is NO WAY I can afford gold any other way, I use gold mirror! About $16/sqft!

There's no way I can afford the gold smalti -- so I use the gold edges on dinner plates. I was lucky enough to buy twelve large dinner plates with a wide gold rim for $12.00! at a Wimberly thrift shop.

Go here and scroll down to see 24K gold plate rims used to outline the body of a guitar mosaic.

Here is a link that might be useful: Conquistador mosaic guitar

I'm with you Calam, I love colored mirror too, I can't even consider real orsoni gold smalti. too rich for my blood.

In a box of scraps I once got a small chuck of black mirror - never would have thought about buying that but DANG its cool, in my dolphin piece where I did the gradation in the water with a strip of mirror swirling through,,, starting with black mirror was the BOMB! lol I only have tiny splinters of it left and I covet them!

Silva, what if anything do you do to protect that gold edge when you grout? I've heard ppl say that it can be scratched off

I don't do anything to protect it, and it doesn't scratch. I grout over both mirror tile and 24K gold plate edges, and never have a problem.

Where I have had a problem is when I tumbled pieces of plates that had the gold trim; it did wear off in the tumbler.

When worried about something getting damaged during the grouting process, I cover it with the blue painter's tape.