October 17, 2025 • Multi-purpose Mixes

Happy Friday. I just wanted to thank you all for your patience as I took a week off to close my shop, enjoy some family time, and make thousands of cat tails. 😅 The design of the tail is simple, but creating that many required me to step away from my shop and just dedicate several days to it. I'll be getting them sorted and packaged for the Nov. 1 sale. Stay tuned!

When I work on designs for each sale week, I really enjoy looking at how colors and/or designs all work together. I was trying to think of a unique way to use all of this week's murrini in the same project, but instead I used the three groups of colors as individual mini works of art. My friend Joni, from Aggie Glass Designs, is not only our "Stringer and Dot go-to girl", but when I proposed the idea of her creating some "Window Cards" for us, she had already been thinking about the idea, too. This isn't a new idea, but new to Joni and me. Not only is it a beautiful way to use these groupings of murrini, but Joni gives us a reliable fellow-glass-artist source to get great cards from. She's always open to custom designs, too. 

I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome of our collaboration. Look at the presentation of these cards. Perfect as gifts, or to sell at your store or craft sale. The little artwork in each card is either a magnet, or packaged with a little easel. More on this week's project, as well as a link to Joni's cards, later in the blog.

Housekeeping notes: 
All my murrini are COE 96. This week's murrini (all Oceanside fusible glass) will go on sale tomorrow, Saturday, October 18, at NOON Central Time. 

This week I'll have all the murrini available in both mixes and singles, as well as some trios. 

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This week's Murrini:

Valentine Mix

The Valentine Mix consists of 2 Artsy Red Veined Leaves, 2 Red Striped Flat-End Petals, and 3 each of the opal Red, Light Cherry Red transparent, and White opal hearts packaged as a fun multi-size variety. So you'll have 9 hearts ranging from tiny to large. In total, there are 13 canes in the Valentine mix. 

Also, I will have all the designs available as singles, as well as a multi-size trio of all the hearts. These sweethearts will be perfect for all your upcoming Valentine creations or anywhere you need a splash of red. 

In the Happy Birthday design, I wanted to show that the Flat-end Petals also make adorable little buds. Note: the opal and transparent red hearts look very similar in the photos, but are quite different when viewed in person. More to come on the creation of these little works of art a bit later in the blog.

Dainty Lilac and Grape Mix

This beautiful mix is on the DAINTY side and has lots of fun options. There will be a full Columbine kit (on the small side) which is 4 each of the Columbine upper petal (made of White and transparent Grape) and lower petal (made of opal Lilac), with a half-cane topper. Also included will be a Grape Veined Leaf, a Lilac Blossom and a Grape Dotted Flat-end Petal, all on the smaller side as well.

I will also have the blossom, leaf and flat-end petals sold as singles in varying sizes, as well as Lilac Columbine Kits in a Medium, Large, and XL size.

I'll also have a few packages of the Lilac Blossom sold as Seconds. They are still lovely and the inner Vanilla Cream is fully covered in Lilac, but some of the little petals were just late to fully form.

These lovely cards show the Lilac and Grape mix in two ways. The one on the left is a pretty basket using all the canes of the mix separately as a bouquet. The sample on the right shows the flat ends against a half dot as well as a full Columbine. Lots of options here!

Sapphire Wintry Mix
I'm not sure why Oceanside didn't name their Dark Blue Transparent "Sapphire", but they should have! This transparent blue is absolutely stunning, therefore, I'll be referring to these as Sapphire! I had several requests for more snowflakes, but my previous blue snowflakes were made from Deep Aqua transparent. So this blue version is a bit different and every bit as beautiful.

In this mix you'll receive two each of the 5 designs; a Simple Snowflake, Sapphire Snowflake, White Leaf with Sapphire vein, transparent Sapphire Leaf with White vein, and a Curved Sapphire Flat-end Daisy Petal. The leaves are best at a light tack fuse, but the snowflakes and flat-end petals are lovely at all temperatures.

I'll also have each design in this mix available as a single, too. 

The flat-end petals are shown two ways; fully surrounding a white dot, and up against a half circle like a Cone flower. 

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Here's this week's murrini fully fused/tested on clear.

In a full fuse, most of the designs round out too much. However, the blossom, snowflakes, and the transparent Sapphire leaf look lovely at a full fuse.

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As a reminder just in case you are new to assembling a Columbine...For the best end result, I'm highly recommending you fuse these in a TWO STEP process. More on this in the video below.  

Here's a quick snip I did of the half cane to show 15 possible slivers from it. More details are in the video. I used my chipper nipper for these.

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This Week's Project: Greeting Cards
Like I mentioned earlier in the blog, the presentation of these cards is quite beautiful. Joni will be selling the window card (which includes an envelope and the clear packaging) that really makes these look professional. Joni made matching dots for my Flat-end Petals, too. You'll find all these on her website.

You can add your own personal message, which I like. Also, the inside of her card is double thick, which holds up the weight of the glass pieces nicely.

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Here are a few tips on how I created the little art pieces.

First I put a piece of paper under each card opening and with a pencil I gently traced around the shape of the opening.

Next I put my 3mm clear glass over the drawing and traced out my general shape with a sharpie. I scored and broke the glass, then finished smoothing the pieces on the grinder. Since I was only going to do a light tack fuse on each piece, I wanted to make sure my outer edges were really smooth.

As you can see, the final size of my glass was about 1/4 inch inside the opening of the card's window. Also note I used textured glass on some of my pieces, but the other pieces were just plain non-textured 3mm clear. 

I snipped up all my murrini on the thin side. Most of these can easily be nipped into 2-3mm (or less) slices. 

After decorating the plain non-textured glass, I put them on top of ZYP sprayed texture molds for the tack fuse. This will embed just enough of a design to give them a little something extra, but not overpower your scene.

Once my pieces were finished, I used Gorilla Glue Gel to adhere my small magnets on. Once the magnet fully dried, I used a double sided sticky dot to attach my artwork to the card.

I got my magnets and glue dots from Amazon, which were about .5 inches around. They make smaller sizes of each, too, which might work better on some projects. 

Another idea is to have your little piece of art placed on an easel. I tried to find where I bought these years ago, but couldn't. Amazon does have a few options, but they'd need to be foldable to put on the back of a card. Also a really fun idea!

One last interesting tidbit...

For this cone flower, the dot used, that was cut in half, was actually a seconds leaf that I cut a 1/2" snip from and fully fused it on 3mm clear like I was going to flip and fuse it. I've done this with other striped leaves and it's really cool. But I actually liked this one before flipping it. It just made for the most interesting coordinating dot. If by chance you get seconds leaves in the Scrap Sale, keep in mind the outer stripes make for interesting designs when flip and fused on their sides.😉

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Joni's window cards, stringer, and dots can be found in her Aggie Glass Designs website, which is always listed in the Helpful Links section of my blog.

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Hints on the Horizon:
On Saturday, Nov. 1, I'll have more batches of recent favorites that sold out quickly. Jellyfish, Teal Starfish, some fun flowers, a NEW murrini in a cute little trio and of course Catie the Calico Cat will finally make her appearance. There's quite a lot to say about her in the next blog. Let's just say...she's been finicky!

Also a reminder that my annual Scrap Sale will be happening again this year on Black Friday! Stay tuned for more details!

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A note to new artists: Quality is my priority. I only sell the best section of each pull. The designs found in your murrini order will look like the samples shown in the blog (sizes of the canes may vary slightly, but never the inner or outer design). "Seconds" or "scrap" canes are those designs that are not yet fully formed or are starting to fade away, murrini with tiny air holes in the design, or with chips or dings. I sometimes sell the nicer Seconds at a discount, or you might find them in the free goodie bags, but more than likely I've saved them for the annual Black Friday Scrap Sale.

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

Oceanside's recommended Firing Schedules.

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. Joni is also my supplier for the Window Cards that we can use for our artwork.

For beautiful COE 96 Twisties, check out Sherry's lovely work at Love•Peace•Create•Shop.

Kiln shopping? Check out my friends at Hot Shot Oven & Kiln. They'll give you great customer service along with a great product made in Wisconsin!

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

For beautiful COE96 frit blends, check out Val Cox's website.

My favorite flattening technique is from a tutorial by Nancy Sala. It’s worth the $8 for the excellent tips she gives. Once purchased and she sees your order, she will email you the tutorial in a PDF.

I buy my Easy Fire Enamels from Cheryl Chapman's website.

For Janice's pre-cut COE 96 ornament blanks, find her at LakeRabbitDesigns.