August 2, 2024 • The Reason for the Season

Happy Friday! Can you believe it is August already? We are getting closer and closer to FALL! Yippee!! Also, just a note to say thank you…as I sure do appreciate your understanding with the new 1st and 3rd Saturday blog/murrini drop.

This week I have LOTS of murrini, but they are basically in two mixes. After creating the Aspen leaf, I had many requests for them in more colors. So I have a lovely mix of Fall Aspens with a really cool project. I also have a NEW Nativity. Some pieces will look familiar from last year, however, I have all the “members of the cast” this time. There are 19 pieces to the mix and I’ll explain how they all go together.

I could have sold my Nativity this week when someone popped into my shop and as they walked by it they stopped and asked if it was for sale. It is not. 😆

On August 17 I’ll have all Christmas…Santa, Rudy, Peppermints, Snowflakes, Christmas Trees, Poinsettia Kits, and more. So stay tuned for those coming very soon.

 

This week’s murrini will be available tomorrow, Saturday, August 3rd, at Noon Central Time. I'm COE 96 only and all this week's murrini were created with Oceanside fusible glass.

The Nativity

This mix will come in two packages and has 18 full canes and 1 half cane. 

Mary (2 canes)
Joseph (2 canes)
Baby Jesus (the half cane)
Shepherd (2 canes)
Sheep (1 cane)
3 Wise Men (6 canes)
Star (1 cane)
Angel (4 canes)

These kits are weighing in at 3.5+oz and will be $60.

I recommend a tack fuse for this mix. The Star can be fully fused, but the other canes have outer shapes that are best lightly tacked to keep the design intact. You can get 16 pieces from each cane, which will give you 16 nativities. I recommend snipping them like the Dragonflies > Snip the cane in half, then those halves in half, then those halves in half and then halves once more. 

The above images are how I snipped Mary’s body into 16 pieces. This way the sizes will be more predictable and uniform. 

I will explain how all the pieces fit together below in this week's project.

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Some of the Nativity will be sold as singles, as well as some Fall favorites.

Bethlehem Star

These beautiful Stars will be on the larger side. They are great tack fused to fully fused. I made several batches, so the Stars may have slightly different designs in your package. Wheeled nippers or the Chipper Nipper will work great. 1.5oz. for $27.

Little Sheep

These cutie patootie Sheep are perfect in the Nativity or other outdoor scenes. They will be sold in 1oz. packages for $18. They are best at a light tack fuse so you don’t lose the frilly outer shape. Wheeled nippers work best with one blade on the top hump and one blade resting evenly on the two bottom humps. 

Angel Kits

The Angel kits will have 3 heads, 3 bodies and 6 wings. They are sold in 1.5oz. packages for $27. I prefer wheeled nippers on these as well as a tack to contour fuse. This kit should make approximately 48 angels. You can also put the body horizontal with just one wing on top to show her flying from the side. 

Candy Corn 

What is Fall without Candy Corn! These cuties snip best with wheeled nippers right near the fattest part of the cane. The Chipper Nipper also works, but make sure you are using the sharpest part of your nipper if they are starting to get worn. These will be sold in 1oz. packages (which is 5 or 6 two-inch canes) for $17. This is a tack fuse murrini.

Fall Aspen Mix (with Variations)
 
There are 5 shades of Aspen Leaves. Amazon, Fern, Yellow, Marigold and Flame. They are absolutely beautiful together. I got advice from my Colorado friend, Elizabeth, on the colors she felt were most appropriate. I’m in love with them. They will be sold in a few different variations. You will be able to choose from:

1oz. package (1 of each color • sizes will vary) $17.
1.25oz. package (1 of each color • they are large) $ 22.
1.5oz. package (2 of each color • they are small) $26.

Each color will also be sold individually in 1.5oz. packages for $26.

More on this project in a bit, but I wanted you to get a peek at these colors! ❤️ I used wheeled nippers on the fattest part of the leaf. If they were too large for the wheeled nipper, I switched to the Chipper Nipper. Both work fine. 

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Here is a photo of this week’s murrini fully fused. Note the far right green leaf (Fern Green) has a very slight reaction to the Vanilla Cream vein when fully fused. This leaf does not show the reaction when just tack fused. 

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I’ll have a few seconds this week:

SECONDS Sheep

These are SECONDS because they are in the latter part of the pull where the center design has started to fade away. They are otherwise perfect and a lot of fun to work with. 1.5oz. for $17.

SECONDS Green Dragonflies

NOTE: the above image is of the regular Dragonflies, but the SECONDS will be a slight variation of this with wings that have a more organic swirl and the bodies will have the black top and bottom area curving in slightly toward the center. They are still gorgeous at a great price. 1 kit contains 4 wings, 1 body and 2 tails for $14. The wing is more on the medium to large side.

Here is a version of the SECONDS Green Dragonfly lightly tack fused. You can see the wings have more of a swirl pattern and the black portions of the body curve inward a bit. 

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This week’s projects!

The Nativity

First I did the sketch of my idea. It is a 6X6 project. 


I prepared one black 6X6 piece of 3mm glass with clear powder dusted over the top and sat it in the kiln. I took a second 6X6 piece of 3mm black glass and placed my Dark Green “hill” in the center, then sifted Oceanside Blue fine frit above the green hill and Oceanside Chocolate fine frit below the hill for the ground. With both colors of frit, I went from very thick (about 3mm deep against the green glass) then tapered it out. For the final step I placed my star. I placed this over the prepared glass in the kiln and ran a slow bubble squeeze FULL FUSE schedule with dams on the right and left side. 

While the background was full fusing in the kiln, I dug through my scrap tub and found some perfect strips of glass, using them at various heights for my buildings.


The first fuse gave me a lovely flat background. I then placed my buildings over the top adding little windows, doors and black stringer for additional design elements. I fused the buildings at more of a contour fuse (top temp of 1380) so they’d be raised more than the background, but flatter and smoother than my upcoming Nativity.

Here we are after the second fuse. The contour fuse worked well keeping the buildings intact.

My first piece of the foreground was the stable. The tip of the stable is on the buildings and I wanted to keep it level, so I placed an underlying piece of glass for support. Note: there is a gap between the buildings and that underlying support piece. Make sure you have something under that area (slide another piece of glass underneath or poke some medium frit under it) or else it will cave in a little bit in your next fuse.

I used black noodles to make the roof.

I laid out my canes from the kit. I snipped my canes down into 16 pieces each. The bottom portion of the photo is to show how all your pieces fit together. Mary and Joseph are looking down on baby Jesus, the Angel has her two wings, the Star, The Wise Men, Shepherd and his little Sheep.

Baby Jesus is the little half cane in your kit. Snip it in half, then in half again, then in half again. This will give you 8 circles. Then note the image with the wheeled nippers, you’ll then take each little disc and snip it in half. This half circle is placed on top of your little manger.

So you can now see all the murrini in the scene. For the Shepherd and Joseph, I made them a little staff with Oceanside stringer that I bent in a candle flame (I have a demo video of this on my Beth Alongi Glass Facebook page from Aug. 2023). Once the staff has cooled, you’ll want to give it a wipe with a damp cloth. Also, next to Mary I had some space, so I put little snips of glass the same color as the Wise Men, as these are the “gifts” they brought. 

I took a little bit of Oceanside Yellow and Chocolate frit in a cup and mixed them together. I sprinkled it under the manger and across the rest of the bottom of the scene. I took a little brush and made a straight line under the Wise Men/Shepherd.

Before I put it in for the final tack fuse, I changed the frit under the Wise Men/Shepherd to be just Chocolate and Black, as I wanted there just to be “hay” in the stable.

Here it is in the kiln going in for the FINAL light tack fuse. You can see I changed the frit under the Shepherd and Wise Men. I also added some under the town (next time I will add the little frit road under the town first, so when I contour fuse the buildings, the road will have a softer texture than the final foreground road). I also added some fine white frit in the sky at the last moment (thanks for that advice Joni). It isn’t pictured here but check it out in the final version. It really needed that touch. 

I’m VERY happy with how this turned out. It was three times through the kiln, but in my opinion, all the layers were needed to make this particular scene work. 

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Fall Leaves by the River

If I lived in Colorado and had to choose a view out my window of either the mountains or a river/brook/stream, I think I’d choose the babbling brook. This was the dream that spurred my next project using the mix of Aspen Leaves. 

I’m sure most of you are familiar with what I call “sludge rocks”. This is grinder sludge that you clean out periodically. You just loosen it slightly with some water, put it on kiln shelf paper, let it dry, and fully fuse it. I’ve had these rocks for some time, but also had some sludge in a tub, so I created more to show you how I do it. I saw someone do this on a forum years ago, so I'm not sure of the exact person who discovered this technique, but thank you!

I put some water in with my sludge and let it soak in. I scooped it up and it was like sand on the beach. Wet, but not too wet.

You can see on my kiln shelf that some are rounder than others. That’s because when I got about half way down it was dry and I added a bit more water. Enough that I could stir it. They formed a nice circle, but looking at the photo below, you can see the pretty ones were the ones not stirred! I need to try this again, but it seems as if the more it is stirred, the more uniform brown it becomes. Of course, each person’s sludge will be different depending on what they’ve been grinding. I think this is FUN! Note, after they dried on my kiln shelf, I did pick them up and rearrange a little. I didn’t want them bumping into each other so I gave them more space.

This is a 5X7 project…sorry I forgot to put my ruler down! The underlying piece is 3mm black with brown and black fine frit mixed up and placed over top. Strange I know, but I wanted to test something. I was hoping that my semi transparent glass would fuse onto the frit and look like water over a sandy riverbed. See it peeking through below?

I then placed my sludge rocks (the ones I had made a few years ago) and then sprinkled the rest of my fine frit mix around them. I’m already loving this. 

I snipped a few thin pieces of each color of the Fall Aspen Leaves and placed them around the rocks, trying to make them look as natural as possible. I had a mis-snip or two and I just snuggled those down in the rocks. I also put some medium clear frit around a few of the rocks to give it a bit of water movement. 

I put the entire piece in for one light tack fuse:

150>1150>30
350>1310>5
9999>950>5 hours
150>700>15
300>room temp

I think if I were to do it over, I wouldn’t have used the blue glass. First of all the underlying frit on the top of the black glass pretty much disappeared. I also had a little devit with this glass but it was completely uniform over all the blue, so it wasn’t quite as noticeable, but I wasn’t a fan of that. I think I’ll go again but just use clear glass over my sand instead of the blue/white wispy Oceanside glass. 

Still, this sweetheart is a keeper and a quick and easy project! Since I had the sludge rocks already made from the past, it only took me about 30 minutes to put this together. I think I’ll put it in a 5X7 wooden frame. 

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Hints on the Horizon
I know many of you are needing Christmas murrini. On August 17 I’ll have a Big Christmas Mix and singles, too. I’ll have a variety for you but will re-make them to be available again on Sept. 7 if you need more. I’m working a little extra to make as much as possible for Aug. 17 since we’ll have a bit of a break due to Labor Day weekend being a 5th Saturday. If you have a Christmas murrini request, feel free to message me. 

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Helpful Links:

If you are looking for COE 96 stringer or pre-fused dots, Joni pulls matching stringer for the items I have each week. Find her beautiful work at Aggie Glass Designs.

If you are looking for Mike LaChance’s COE 96 handcrafted Bails, find his unique work at Mike’s Innovative Glass.

If you use COE 90, be sure to shop Lori’s beautiful murrini and mille options found at Wilderness Glass.