Painted glass gems and what to do with them

 

I have become obsessed recently with painting glass gems.
I posted about them back in March here: http://zoeowyn.blogspot.com/2013/03/glass-nail-polish-gems.html


Well what can you do with all of them?

All sorts of things

I have been playing with some wire wrapping. The first one I did is a classic swirling cab capture I learned from Dale "Cougar" Armstrong. I believe its in her book.

http://www.amazon.com/Wirework-Illustrated-Guide-Wire-Wrapping/dp/1596680881/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1375979158&sr=8-2&keywords=dale+armstrong%2C+wire+wrapping

And if its not, its still a fantabulous book

Then there is this tutorial making the rounds on Pintrest and facebook (from http://www.beaducation.com/spiro) Clearly these are a steam-punk wrap. I need to work out the bail, but this is an easy wrap, and it captures the cab nicely.

I plan on integrating them into my polymer clay work, but in the mean time I have been playing with settings.

Playing with one of the eyes I made

While playing with epoxy sculpting clay I set some onto some basic findings, rings and one of those pieces with blank spots for you to put in your own gems

 




At the art store I was looking at some settings. The ceramic one needs to have the background painted in, as its a bit too big and the white shows (but its cute), the colored plastic frames are a bit too small, and the metal finding is great.

This made me think of the frame molds I have, they aren't going to work



And just because these are so cool looking I will leave you with this picture again

Glass nail polish gems

They are shiny and sparkly and sooo much fun to make

I tripped over this youtube tutorial the other day by CraftKlatch. I seriously have no idea how i found it, or what I was looking for. But there it was and it was sparkly, so I watched.

And how cool are these things!

http://youtu.be/NnDT-a0vo0w

They are super easy, and sort of addictive to make. I think Im going to use them with polymer clay.

Oh and I made eyes...the possibilities...

I started with some plain ones, added glittery nail polish, gave the back a nice solid opaque coating of polish.

They look like a poor mans faux dichroic glass piece

The eyes I made--insert maniacally evil mwhahahah

Intimidated

I have a sample pack of glass clay (yes you heard the right glass clay), and a sample pack of Hadar's metal clays.

Both have been in their respective packages for over a year at this point, waiting for me to reconstitute them and make something amazing.

I know what I want to do, but I am intimidated as $%^&*(. Seriously, a cuss word was needed, thats how bad it is.

I guess after I get over my fear of cleaning off my desk, I need to venture forth and use these products.

Spider web

spider web 2
Originally uploaded by Zoeowyn

I purchased this awsome ruby glass from an etsy vendor (MoonDancer.etsy.com), not knowing what I was going to do with it, just had to have it. One of the ladies in the wire wrapping class found the spider. Mary, who I sat next to, and I plotted this little masterpiece from there. The egg sac was mary's idea.
I love it its perfectly wicked!