Tuesday, October 26, 2010

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.



Thursday, October 21, 2010

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.