After a very long and hard week at work, I has two wonderful things to look forward to: 1). The time change - yes, I love this time change because the days are longer and when it is as beautiful and sunny as it was this last weekend, it is a fantastic shift. All winter I am getting up in the dark and going home in the dark after work. As a visual-kinetic person I need LIGHT to keep my energy going. I welcome spring with open arms! 2). I took a class at Castle In The Air http://www.castleintheair.biz from Ulla http://ullam.typepad.com/ullabenulla on making ornaments and jewelry of small or miniature collages between glass and soldering them together. Here are the ones I made:
The top piece is has lace sandwiched between glass that I had to circle cut. The piece to the left of center - are three 1 inch squares linked together. The two to the right are made from microscope glass with the collages sandwiched between them. The central square on point was an exercise in adding the decorative wire at the top. The 1/2 circle is not done but shows what the piece looks like before you solder.
Soldering isn't hard but it isn't easy either. Well, not for me. I am one of those crafters that swiftly works through projects. With soldering you have to really slow, slow, slow down and methodically apply the solder so that it ends up smooth. For my first efforts, I did pretty good and I really loved the process. Ulla is a fabulous teacher and coach so it was easy to quickly get into the projects she set out for us to do.
I think I will do more of this in the near future. Birthday presents and Christmas presents present chances to work on my technique.
