Recently I decided to look at what was available locally. I discovered there was a one-day, no-experience-necessary "Lead Came Christmas Ornaments" class. Count me in! Since a friend was half price, I checked with a friend who also likes crafts. Amazingly, there was still space in the class, and I signed the two of us up.
Today was the class, and I made six ornaments:
(I realize there are seven there, but the candle was made by my friend, and she gave it to me as an early Christmas present. Isn't it pretty?)
Of course, I had *intended* to make a bunch of ornaments for presents... but I'm rather attached to most of these. (I might be able to part with one or two... maybe.)
I still need to wash these to remove the flux. I figured I'd take a photo first, in case I somehow broke one.
9 comments:
Oh I love the blue bells. Gorgeous!
nice! I was recently researching some glasswork classes here. the ornaments all turned out great!
Thanks! :)
damnit now I want to make stained glass :(
It's fun! :)
Those are so beautiful, I would never have guessed that was your first class! They would make precious gifts, but I can definitely see why you'd want to hold on to them. :)
I have an annoying habit of being good at things. ;) (Not all things, but many art things.)
Excellent! They look great! I think my favorite is the star. I agree the candle is very pretty. :-)
We were talking about this in the last stained glass class I took -- over a year ago already, good grief -- and the teacher was commenting that he may try to get more students to try Christmas ornaments in the class because the fact they're usually simple makes them good first projects.
In an interesting coincidence, last night I dragged myself over to the Workspace (the last night it's open after Christmas) to solder together two copper-foil ornaments I'd cut, ground, and foiled -- but not soldered -- before LAST Christmas. (Note to self: next time get A Round Tooit sooner, so you don't have to use a green scrubbie to get the tarnish off the foil next time.)
I know the guy who teaches the copper-foil stained glass classes there also knows how to do lead cane, and they have the supplies, but he never offers lead cane classes there. I wonder if I could convince him to, or to help me with it if I took a normal copper-foil class? There's a book called The Stained Glass Garden that has some really beautiful 3D lead cane projects I'd love to try.
Lead came (no, the "m" is not a typo, although I keep thinking it should be) is pretty simple... you need to stretch the lead came first, and then just form it around the piece. Of course, we weren't really worrying about getting pieces to fit together for the most part, and they also didn't talk about packing the pieces, which I think you normally do (for windows and such). You might be able to get the guy to just show you what you need to do.
Too bad about the foil being all tarnished! I'll definitely take a tip about not waiting that long, should I try it some time. ;) (I'd like to...)
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