Stained Glass Bountiful Utah Temple

This year for Christmas we had Sarah’s brother Joseph and his family to give presents to.  So, following the traditions of previous years, I made them a stained glass picture of the Bountiful Utah Temple where they were married.  I wasn’t able to use much recycled glass on this one, only the windows, but I was able to put to good use some of the wood floor we have been salvaging to use as a frame.  The floor boards are tongue and groove.  The stained glass fit nicely into the groove.  So, I sanded off the old paint, trimmed off the tongue side, routed an edge on it and turned it into a picture frame.

 Another innovation this piece has on it are a couple of female ends to chain locks.  I have been struggling to find a secure way to hang heavy stained glass on a wall and I hope this will finally be the solution.

 I bought an LED light bar from IKEA to mount on the back.  The problem is that there is n o sign at IKEA that says that when you buy an LED light strip, you have to buy a plug to go with it.  So, I don’t have any pictures with the light working.   In fact, I haven’t seen it work yet.  We sent the plug to them after the picture was delivered and haven’t had a chance to see the whole ensemble together.

Look Ma, no plug

Eprhraim Co-op

Well, I haven't posted in a while.  It is not because I haven't been doing glass or gardening, but it is because We Moved!  That's right, we have left our beautiful garden in the city to move to lovely little Ephraim, Utah.  My wife and I met at Snow College and ever since we graduated and left, we have wanted to go back.  I transferred to the University of Utah and earned a Masters Degree in Parks, Recreation and Tourism and have been running swimming pools and recreational programs for Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation  for the last 8 years.  But, this spring a position opened up here at Snow running the swimming pool and teaching the aquatic classes.  So, we moved.  We are excited to be here and love it all so far.

  I have always wanted to build a straw bale home, and this move will allow me to finally build one.  We need to sell our home in Salt Lake before we can, but we are gearing up for it now.  I have been sharpening up my knowledge of building practices especially those surrounding straw bales and am getting pretty stoked up about it all.  In the mean time I have still been doing some glass work, but not so much gardening as we are just renting for now.  As things progress, I will be posting as much as possible to keep everyone up to date.

In the mean time, here are a few pictures of some stained glass that can be found at the Ephraim Co-op.  This is a location that allows crafters from around the area to sell their wares to the community.  Besides the stained glass I have also placed there some bottle vases, earrings, and necklaces.

Glass Color

People often ask me how I get my glass to be the right color. Some people ask me if I paint the glass or if I add chemicals to the glass. So I'm going to explain here about recycled glass colors. Let me first off say that even though I can often be found with a variety of liquor bottles in my possession, I don't drink alcohol. However, alcohol bottles are the most abundant type of bottle out there and come in the biggest variety of colors. That’s right; I get my colors from the bottles themselves.

There are a few ways stained glass gets its color. First of all normal glass is clear which is very convenient because it would be weird to look out of colored glass windows all the time. To get different colors of glass manufacturers add metal oxides to a batch of molten glass. Different metal oxides in different ratios produce the myriad of colors that you see in stained glass. These colors can range between opaque to clear, dark and light and everything in between. There are several companies out there that specialize in producing consistent colors for use in art glass.

This is a good time to talk about compatibility. The companies that make art glass usually try and make their glass compatible. This means that two different pieces will fuse together when heated and when they cool they will maintain a congruent, cohesive bond. Basically glass expands as it is heated and as it cools it contracts. Depending on the chemical makeup of the glass, i.e. the different metal oxides mixed in, the glass may expand and contract at different rates. If you try and fuse two pieces of glass that are not compatible, they will expand and contract at different rates and a cohesive bond will not form resulting in cracking and in extreme cases explosions. The trick here is to produce glass that is not only compatible, but also in a range of colors. The swirly colors seen in a lot of stained glass is produced in this way.

Bottle and window manufacturers don’t care if their glass is compatible with others, they only care if their glass finishes out structurally and visually sound. This is why people usually don’t fuse recycled glass; it just isn’t compatible. Because some of the metal oxides required to get certain colors are expensive (silver and gold for example) there are several colors that you will rarely see in “throw away” liquor bottles. Reds, yellows, oranges, and purples are rare in bottles and are usually reserved for art glass or more expensive containers and vases.

Another way glass is colored is by painting it with fuseable glass. If you look at stained glass in churches and see faces that look like they are painted it is because they are. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a cheap trick because it usually isn’t. Specially trained glass painters practice for years to learn to paint with enamels on glass. Enamels are basically powered glass. The artist will paint on the glass and then fire the glass in a kiln to fuse the enamel onto the glass. The end product truly is “stained glass” that won’t scrape off and can’t be washed off.

The last way glass is colored is by painting it with regular paint. This is the cheapest and worst way to color glass. Basically the glass is painted with normal paint, and that’s all. This kind of paint will eventually come off because there is no chemical bond to adhere it to the glass. If you were to put painted glass in a kiln it would burn of the paint and you will get a dirty clear glass as a result.

As a result of all this, I have a limited pallet of colored glass to choose from. Most of my glass comes from bottles including the ones shown here. (No, I am not endorsing any of them.) Sometimes I use different colored (usually white) light sconces. To get the hard to find colors I search the thrift stores for vases, plates, cups, etc. Everything I use has to be cut with my saw and then fired flat in the kiln before I can use it in stained glass.

 

Christmas Presents

A little Late, but here are some of the projects I did for Christmas.  As always, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Stained glass Mickey Mouse

This Mickey was for my boss who is a huge fan.  100% recycled glass.



Stained Glass Humming Bird and Iris

 These two were requests.  I had made these two before and gave them to my Mother in Law who hung them up in her classroom at school.  This time they were made for someone who saw them in the window and wanted me to make them one as well.  Both are 100% recycled.

Stained Glass Joseph

 Here is Joseph for a stained glass nativity.  About  80% recycled glass and 20% reclaimed glass.

Mary & Jesus for a Nativity

 Here is Mary for the stained glass nativity. She is also about 80% recycled glass and 20% reclaimed glass.

 

The "complete"  Nativity

 Here is the whole family together just after opening on Christmas day.  I actually made two of these Nativity sets.

Recycled Glass Ear Rings

It’s about time I posted again.  I have been very busy lately.  We had a craft fair at the local Elementary School, and four different stained glass Christmas presents I’ve been working on.  Because some of the recipients of those presents read this blog, I will not be posting pictures of them for a little while yet.  Instead I have a few pictures of some of the ear rings we sold at the craft fair.  I have to admit that these are some of the worst pictures I have ever taken.  They were taken with my iphone and I’m pretty sure the lens was smudged, probably by one of my snot nosed kids.

Some of these were sold at the fair and we still have some left.  If any of you are interested in buying some, I'm selling them at $15 per pair.  The hooks and wire are sterling silver.  These are made by cutting cross sections from bottles and then fire polishing them in the kiln.  I have many more of these in a variety of colores.  If you want something specific I can make them to order, just let me know what you are looking for.  Shown here are the more symetrical and matching sets if you want to see some of the more funky looking rings, just let me know.  Also, I am planning on taking more pictures with my "real " camera.  Starting with the new year these and many other products will be showing up on Etsy.  When that happens, I'll write another post to let you all know.

Garden Update

People have asked me to add more pictures to the blog and people keep asking about the garden, so I decided to do a follow up post about how our plants did this year with mostly pictures of vertical gardening.

 Here are the beans in front of the front window.  They cast a nice shade on the front of the house.  This system made them very easy to pick.

The beans grew all the way to the top of the strings and started looking for a place to keep growing

The pumpkins completely took over the pergola providing shade for the house and the hammock.  Check out how the pumpkins just hang there.  They didn't have any problems growing like that.  We didn't even have to support them.

 Another hanging pumpkin.  A couple of our pumpkins ripened really early.







The pumpkin seeds came from a pumpkin we had last year.  We planted 11 plants and grew 11 pumpkins.  Next year we will probably buy seeds to see if we can get more out of each plant.








Pumpkins on the roof.  Look at all that shade.  The vines didn't like growing on the black asphalt shingles.  They kept turning back towards the pergola and hanging down in the middle of the walkway.  I had to keep putting them back up on the pergola.

Here you can see the beans in front of the window, the pumpkin covered pergola with zucchini in the front as well as the salvaged countertop pavers.  The beans are sparse in the middle because a large rain storm came just after we planted washing away the seeds so many of the beans didn't germinate.








A view of the front yard from the street.  The tomatoes ended up growing well over the top of the t-frames.  We canned enough spaghetti sauce and ketchup for the entire year.

Bottle Bottom Boxes

The first Bottom Bottle Box

Made from a couple of Whole Foods spice jars

I received a case of empty Bombay Sapphire Gin sample bottles. Probably the kind you might find in hotels and airlines. They are tiny. They are too small to melt for stained glass, so I decided to slice them up into little square rings to be melted for jewelry. After slicing several bottles up, I had a stack of left-over bottle bottoms. I took them inside and told my wife that we should try and come up with something to do with them. I left the stack of bottle bottoms on the table and went back out to the shop for a minute. When I got back, guess what, the kids had found them and started to play with them (doesn’t that always happen?) What they were doing was making little boxes out of them by placing one on top of another upside down. With a little experimentation, the Bottle Bottom Box was born.



Frosted glass adds a nice touch



I am still having a hard time with the hinges. There are no hinges in the stores small enough to work on the boxes, so I am making my own with old copper wire that was pulled out of a remodel job. They work fine, but I’m still experimenting with them. Right now I am trying several different bottle sizes and styles to see what people like. I have already given away a couple as birthday presents. I’m sure I’ll be making many more of these in the future.

Multiple sizes are available

Manti Temple

Stained Glass Manti Temple





Trees in front of the temple

I finally finished it!  After a long and time consuming marathon of stained glass, I was finally able to finish the stained glass picture of the LDS Manti Temple.  This beauty took over 80 hours of work, but I was able to get it done in about a month.  The temple is made of light sconces I melted flat, the windows, roof, and trees are also recycled bottles I melted flat.  The sky and grass are made of salvaged stained glass I bought.  Even the frame is made of salvaged molding. 









Manti Temple west tower with light rays



This is by far the biggest, most difficult, and most rewarding piece I have made so far.  It has just over 500 pieces in it. 

Unfortunately there is no income off of this one; it was a wedding present for my brother-in-law and his new wife…they had better like it ;)  I hope to be able to start making more large pictures like this one soon.





Reclaimed Countertop Scraps

Again, it’s been a while since posting last, but here I am again. As you will see in the next few posts I have been very busy. In the Mitleider method of gardening it is important to minimize the amount of non vegitable life in the garden. This is mainly talking about bugs and weeds. The way to accomplish this is by weeding and pruning regularly and by not watering in-between the isles of crops. Because my garden is in the front yard where it is constantly under the scrutiny of anyone passing by, I decided that I didn’t want to have just plain dirt between my grow boxes. So, this is what I came up with:

I went around to several stone countertop manufacturers and picked the scraps out of their dumpsters. I did ask all of them of course (some not at first.) I used the scraps as pavers in-between the grow boxes. Because I am a glass fanatic, I put a mixture of different colored crushed recycled glass between the pieces. What you have as an end result is a beautiful, bug and weed resilient yard.

This process takes many, many, many hours. Each piece is a different thickness and has to be set and leveled individually. I didn’t cut any of them and just trusted that I would find one that fit. It was worse than a huge puzzle.

Working without a work shop

I haven’t been able to work much on my glass lately because my work shop is overrun with construction debris. Besides remodeling the bathroom, we split the family room to include a new bedroom. So, all of the family room furniture is in the garage (aka work shop). So I am limited to working on small, less messy projects in side. This usually means stained glass projects. The latest projects were for Mother’s Day gifts. 100% of the glass in these projects was recycled in one way or another. If you look at the pictures of some of the pieces you will see a variety of colors and a few different types of clear. The colored glass all comes from bottles I collected. The process goes as follows:

1. Collect the bottles. I have a few sources, but it is always difficult to find a variety of colors. Some colors are easy to find like green, brown, and clear. Blue and black are less common, but I can get them pretty regularly. Reds, bright yellows, orange and purples are much more difficult to find. I usually find them at thrift stores in the form of vases.

2. Clean the bottles. Remove the labels and any crusties that might be lingering.

3. Cut the tops and bottoms off. I use a tile saw with a special glass blade. The bottoms get crushed into powder for other uses and the necks get sliced into little rings for jewelry.

4. Cut the remaining body of the bottle in half vertically to make two half cylinders.

5. Clean all the leftover residue off.

6. Place the half cylinders in the kiln concave side up.

7. Fire the kiln and melt the half bottles flat.

Quite the process! However this produces wonderful flat glass that is perfect for making stained glass projects.