Bayou Salé GlassWorks: I have a Sick Sense About This

We're going to start things off by taking a much better and much closer look at one of the Oil Kaleidoscopes that Lara made complete with the stand that displays it both safely and prominently. Most people look at these and say, "What is it?" while wrinkling their noses slightly UNTIL they look through it and see it in action. Then it's all wonder and amazement!

Here's a look at what you see when you look through Lara's scope. [Insert you own ooh's and ahhs here.]

Sheri completed her pair of Butterfly Hearts and made her own hooks for them. I like to use wire somewhere in the 14 gauge area but there is no right or wrong here. In fact, the wire that she used here was somewhat smaller than normal but still able to hold the suncatcher without the weight of it distorting the hooks into a non-circular shape.

Let finished her Ice Cube in a Drink Suncatcher and it's as cute as can be. It kind of makes me thirsty for an adult beverage!

Linda F finished up all but one of her Christmas Ornament Suncatchers. Although they were each made in assorted colors you can easily see that they are from the same set due to the common colors that Linda used throughout the lot of them.

Judy wrapped up three Crosses this week and I overheard her say that she has five(!) more to go. She's going to be able to make these in her sleep when she's through with them all.

Lara was busy at home making her three layer Turtle In The Sea Diorama. Two different water lines are featured- one behind the turtle and the other in front to give make this truly three dimensional. And the best part is not only the exquisite work that she did on it but the fact that she designed and drew it up all by herself!

Betty finished 2 more Frogs one of which is shown here. She's become the queen of Suncatchers of that there's no denying.

With all of her flowers and humming birds tacked together Susan D has begun the complex task of cutting out her background glass. Since she's using clear glue chip she was able to place the sheet of glass on top of her pattern and then position the flowers and birds on top of the glass to trace around them. The tricky part is separating everything without cutting through any of the 'good' pieces. Since this window is fairly large Susan is going to need a second sheet of glue chip to finish it off but she's going to have to grind, wrap and tack everything here before she can cut into that second piece of glass.

Betty also worked on three more of her best selling Cardinal Suncatchers sans the holly leaves which change these from a seasonal item to an all-year-round suncatcher.

Cindy finished grinding her first Circular Flower and then moved on over to grinding the second one of the pair that she's working on. It won't be long now.

Kandise foiled and then tacked together the number section of her Address Window. Once that was done she tacked the number section to the flower section to create one large window which she then cut a border for using a second hue of green glass. She has one side of the border foiled and has taken the other three sides home to foil there. She'll surely be soldering this when she comes back in.

Zoe's Mary and Child Suncatcher made incredible progress this week as she finished cutting out her pieces and then effortlessly ground everything for a perfect fit. She's taken this home with her where she hopes to foil everything so she can hopefully begin soldering this upon her return to class.

Annette's getting closer and closer to adding a border to her LSU Tiger Window. She cut the claws of the tiger out of black iridized glass but isn't thrilled with how it looks so she's going to re-cut them out of a non iridized piece of glass next week. When you are this close to finishing a window of this magnitude you don't settle for okay at the very end of the road!

Keri finished the foiling on her Praying Mantis Window and then tacked it together. Once that was done she set upon cutting out her background glass for which she picked regular every day window glass. Because it's so hard to see I've made sure to catch the reflection of the fluorescent Lights in the glass so you can see that there actually is glass cut out for her background. Next up Keri will work on the border.

Cheryl has begun working on a new Mr Bingle window which features her friendly flying snowman in a New Orleans Streetcar.

Ann is ready to foil. The beauty to this fractured design is that if it doesn't follow the pattern perfectly it really doesn't matter-- you can be off on a lot of pieces with this design and no one will ever be the wiser. That said, Ann DID follow the pattern perfectly!

Let's Double Humming Bird Window has its front side soldered and I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that she comes in with the back side soldered next week so it can gain hooks and its rightful place as a completed window. It really does look good even if the heart that the birds form isn't painfully apparent. That said, it looks 100 times better than the original idea that she first showed to me.

Martha's Beach Scene is winding up as the only thing left to do is to grind one more piece of water and then work on fitting in the beach chairs that she's already cut out of yellow glass. The chairs will perfectly contrast against the sand and the bit of water that it cuts into. The pieces that make up the chair are small but it's that detail which will bring this window to life.

Melissa is steadily filling in the pieces of her Tiffany Birds Window and is alternating between two types of fractures and streamers glass throughout it. She has some with only green fractures and another with green and pink fractures. The pieces nearer the bottom of the window and nearest to the flowers will feature some pink while other pieces will only have green. Add into that some pure clear textures pieces for contrast and you are going to have one beautiful window.

Bee has some of the most perfect fits in her Peacock Window that I've seen in a while. She says that she wants this to be colorful and to not just disappear into the sea of all of the other Peacocks that she's seen done here in our classes. I like her color choices so far and can't wait to see what she plans to do to spruce this up even more.