Sunday, August 24, 2008

Icy Hot Glass

The kiln cooled down, and I could see how the fire polish made all the edges neat and smooth.

I put the two little enameled fused glass pendants next to a ruler, to give a better idea of their size.

When I first peeked into the kiln when the firing was almost over, at first I thought the hole had completely closed up, but this morning I could see that it had just tapered in and was smaller.

So I re-drilled the hole, to open it up more.

They look like slabs of frozen time, like they are made of ice with the image frozen inside. Like glacier beads. Makes my imagination go rambling with ideas of a lost polar expedition and these are the artifacts, a skeleton key and a pocketwatch image.




So I have a decision to make, maybe you can help me out. I can attach the wire wrapping and make the sterling silver toggle to turn these into clasps for a front closing design. Or I can leave them like this, for a wire wrap at the top, maybe even make a bezel for them, and they can be pendants, focal beads for a necklace.

I'm having trouble making up my mind. These beads are one of a kind, so if I grind their edges to turn them into a clasp and attach the hardware it's a one-way trip for them. I could make another later as a bead but it wouldn't be exactly the same look.

So what do you think? Glass Pendant Bead? or Glass Toggle Clasp?

2 comments:

Amanda said...

Well, you already know that I like the clock, and I think that I'd be more inclined to use it in a focal. However, I -love- the gimmicky idea of using the key as part of a toggle - do you follow my thinking there?

LLYYNN - Lynn Davis said...

That gives me an idea to check out my stash of charms to see if I have a long skinny key - wouldn't it be fun to use a key as the toggle part?