Project 47: Cutting the glass

Just before Christmas I was invited to the studio of Melsie Glass to learn how she makes beautiful fused glass pieces like the one above. You can see more of her work at her Etsy store (or will be able to when she returns from her Christmas vacation).

Before fusing glass one needs to buy some glass. Melsie Glass is made from a brand called Bullseye Glass. If you would like to try this yourself you can find it online or at a local glass shop. In the Triangle area of NC you can find it at Carolina Stained Glass in Durham. It is important to use the same kinds of glass when fusing to guarantee that they will expand and contract at similar rates to each other. The other supplies you need are glass cutting tools and access to a kiln.

Then it’s just a matter of cutting and designing your piece. We chose to make a simple dish using a piece of clear glass on the bottom and brown glass on the top. Here we are cutting the clear glass:

We then placed the brown piece on top:

Notice how the clear is still visible around the edges? That will create a neat effect once the piece is fused.

For decoration we used small glass chips called frit. These were sprinkled over the top of the brown portion of the glass:

Then our dish was ready to go into the kiln.