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Gnome Door

Category: bethie's world | Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:37 pm

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During the holidays we Finally got around to making a gnome door. I showed hubby some pictures I had on the computer and out we went with a tape measure.The door can be made any size depending on your tree. We decided on this spot in the yard because of the nice old ivy vines running up the tree plus my goose pen is right behind this so I am here every day to enjoy it. We measure for the size we want then I cut a rectangle out of newspaper that size. I folded it in half and cut a gentle curve with scissors. I did the same for the window.
We're going to make this completely out of junk and not buy a thing.
The body of the door is some aged oak barnwood that we salvaged. The door is cut with a jigsaw. It's cut out in one piece and then re-cut into several. It's put back together on the back with some thin wood. The doorframe is cypress that I've sanded and sponge painted. The hinges are old kitchen cabinet door handles pounded flat, cut off and sprayed black. The brass door handle is the top off and old canister. Mirror is glued to the back of the window. It doesn't have to be cut to size and could be a mirror out of an old compact. Hubby gets carried away by it all and even grinds off the screw heads to make them square. What a guy. We'll definitely be making another of these in a different size and shape. Fun.


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My Pighead

Category: bethie's world | Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:24 pm

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Sometimes you just Want something. I woke up one day and longed for a Pighead. You know the feeling. I go right to taxidermy on e-bay and start bidding on a taxidermy pig form. He has teeth and tongue but no ears or eyes. Still I love him and soon he arrives in a box on my doorstop. Hubby is surprised and pleased to make his aquaintance.

I decide to glass him all in shades of blue off one big sheet of glass. I cut the glass and then sort it into shades. We get eyes and ears and attach them. Now the pig can watch his own creation. He has kind eyes.

Hubby loves spirals so I make sure to include a few.

I want to make him like a carousel pig. Fun. It takes a good while to get him glassed. He will take a lot of taping off to keep the grout out of his mouth. We go with gray grout and hubby does his thing. When the grout cures the cleaning and scraping is done.

He has a spot on the dining room wall all picked out for him so up he goes.


He's such a Happy Pig.


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Mosaic Eggs

Category: bethie's world | Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:18 pm

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I saw some painted eggs online that were very pretty but I knew paint could never make it in the Southern sun. I want eggs in a cute nest so I look around for something to glass in a robin's egg blue. Egg Gourds. They are hard as a rock and ready to go. These are easily grown and will cure right on the vine and have many crafty uses. Grow some. Here are the egg gourds shown with a white size medium egg.

The glass is small so I put it on with tweezers.

Hubby works his grouty magic. Black grout is a Big Mess.

I search around for some wild grapevines that still have some "give" in them. Hubby twists me up a grapevine wreath and I take the leftovers and weave a crude bottom into it. I want plenty of drainage on them.
All done.



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Summer Garden Retrospective

Category: bethie's world | Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 3:37 pm

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Well the gardening gods looked upon us with kindness this year. It was droughty here but several times when rain was critically needed we got it.
This is the right side of my back steps.

This is the left side of the back steps.

Clemmies do great here in the south. This is Jackmani.

Down the path to the shop.

Back at the veg. garden on an August afternoon. We lost several contorted willows from drought so we made arbors out of them.

Plant it and they will come and they did.

The beautiful came also.

Plant cupheas for hummingbirds and for their many flowers.

I love the colors on these.

There should always be Buddleia.

We enjoyed every piece of garden junk we have.

I grew a lot of foliage plants this year. Coleus varieties just keep getting better.

One of my 5 big hypertufa troughs.

Looking forward to this year's garden. Insert smile here.



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Garden Sinks (mosaic)

Category: bethie's world | Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 9:51 pm

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This summer I told hubby I wanted to mosaic and old sink to put in my landscape. He reminded me there was an old sink in the shop when we bought the house and it was up in the rafters. He got a ladder amidst the "be careful" and "don't hurt yourself" and brought down a lovely cast iron sink. We looked around the shop and came up with a heavy metal stool that he took the back off and we inverted to be the sink stand. I had my heart set on a spot near my patio that is heavily landscaped and was happily amazed that this would be a perfect fit. Hubby leveled and put the stand in place so I could plant around it while the sink was pending. I decided to keep it fairly simple since there is a lot going on in my yard. I just scribble some directional lines on the sink and cut some glass and start. This multicolored glass is all off one sheet that was left over from a church window hubby made, in other words FREE!

I decide to use old spouts I get at the junkyard. I like a rustic look. Hubby does all the grouting.We go with gray grout for this one.

I decide it would be nice to have a matching mirror over the sink. Hubby cuts the rectangle out of concrete backer board. I make the middle real mirror so it can reflect some of the plants around and a hypertufa vase that is sitting across from it.

In goes the finished sink like it's been there forever. It's right up against my stormhouse which has lattice in front of it. The plants are spilling down from a big hypertufa trough.

Now hubby comes home with a little sink he bought at the junkyard for $1.

We decide to make this a Big Project which we will eventually sell. We agree on the idea that the sink will be a koi pond and the countertop will be the pond verge. Hubby says he will do the cut glass and I will do the mosaic. He cuts out the countertop from backerboard and brings it in. I trace it and start drawing the patterns. I copy the patterns and give them to him. He glues them on the glass, cuts and grinds them and brings them back to me. I recut them as I glue them. Since the sink is very curved I will take one piece and sometimes recut it in as many as 10 pieces and then glue it back together on the sink.This takes Forever.The cut glass design elements are glued on first and then the water is added.

I start at the drainhole of the sink with a dark blue glass and get lighter as I go to the top. Now the sink is glassed and ready for hubby to grout. We are going with black grout.

We build the frame out of cypress. We find cypress 2x4"s at the junkyard for $1 each. Hooray! The shelf on the bottom will be hardware cloth(RATWIRE!) so water won't rot it.

We decide to make a little backsplash so hubby cuts it out and drills the screw holes and gives it to me to glass. We decide on shelf brackets for the top and make a simple pattern for that. I decide we need a little piece to hang from the shelf. We decide on cattails. I draw this and cut it out of copper. Hubby says he will finish it and he does.


We give the snails "irridized slime trails" just for Fun.

We want a color on the wood so we use one of the colored latex stains. This product is Wonderful. The look of paint but not the maintenance. I'm not quite happy with the plain gray so I tint some darker and daub it on with a plastic bag.

We decide to use a new fixture on this one and Finally we are done.


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Stained Glass Orchids

Category: bethie's world | Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:40 pm

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In December Droopy posted some beautiful orchid pics. I just had to have them in glass. I made a pattern from the photo and got hubby on board for this. I orignally wanted pink but this yellow glass kept calling my name.

I needed something heavy to hold these glass pieces so I made a hypertufa vase in a cheap glass vase. The glass is then busted and holes are drilled in the top. Then I glassed it in blue and hubby grouted it. I made the leaves from sheet copper and soldered them to wires.

Not too bad.

We are super busy this spring so I am keeping up with the forum as best I can. I'm mostly just reading the posts and looking at all the beautiful pics. I'm hot and heavy working on a mosaic sink for My yard.

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The Beadmakers Art

Category: bethie's world | Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 6:52 pm

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Several years ago we had some birthday money and decided to get us a beadmaking kit. These have everything you need to get started except the bottled gas. You can get that at home improvement centers. The bead kit runs about $100 but was recently on sale at the Hobby Lobby for $75.
When we got it home and set it up I had hubby start to make beads, in case it blew up or something. He was so very good at it that he has worked in the flame ever since and I assist and do the bead designing. It just worked out that way. He doesn't really like to pick out colors and such and that is the BEST part. I study up on new techniques and then he learns them! He is so great. Once the bead goes into the flame it stays there until it is done. You wave it in and out of the flame as you work on it. Too long in the flame and it will melt and fall off. Too long out of the flame and it will go into shock and break. It is a somewhat graceful hand dance. Once the bead goes into the flame it is usually molten orange so you need to plan your colors beforehand. When the bead is completed it goes into the fiberglass blankets to cool slowly.

In this photo a bead is in the flame and he is holding a graphite marver in the other hand. The bead is rolled and shaped on this as you work on it. There's another marver laying on the table with frit on it that I made. Frit is pieces of the bead rods broken up into different sizes and colors and then picked up on the hot bead.

Frit with bead.

In this photo you can see the cooling blankets on the table beyond him. They look like cotton batting. At the end of the table near the doorknob is where I sit. Those plastic boxes are those day pill things and they are full of frit of all different sizes and colors. I put it on a marver as needed and push it over to him when he's ready for it.

These glass rods are made in advance and then cooled and put on beads. You take glass rods of different colors and tape then together. They go into the flame and you pull molten glass out of them simultaniously and twist it as you pull. You cool them and then they can be used different ways on beads.

This bead has silver leaf on it. The bead is made of trasparant glass.The leaf is cut up by me and put on a marver. You can't touch this stuff with your hands at all. It's very light also. We were back there yucking it up and I looked down and all my leaf had blown away! Now I keep it a little further away. On the odd shaped bead the leaf is on the surface. On the round bead on the end it is in between layers of glass. There are a million ways to make beads.

Many bead techniques use dots. Dots of colors are put on the beads and then manipulated into shapes. These ferns are made with dots that are then pulled to give them their graceful shape.

This bead is a dark brown bead. Then white dots were put on it then amber dots were put over the white. While the amber dots were still raised up the dark frit was picked up. At the very end it was "smashed" to give it this flattened shape.

These are some camo "man beads." They can be used as zipper pulls on jackets or on coolers and keyrings.

Some beads are just for fun.

These sparkly beauties are made with dichroic glass. It is applied to the bead near the end. It can't stay in the flame too long or it loses its sparkle so it must be worked very gently. I love this stuff!

These flower beads are still on the mandrels. The leaves are green dots that are then pulled into shape. The light gray above and below the bead is a release agent that is dried on the mandrel before the glass is put on it. These take a good while to make as the pattern is on both sides. We don't sell these but like to give them as gifts to flower lovers.

Some "eye beads" and amber necklace beads. The amber beads are "smashed" to give this shape. The amber beads are very popular here.

We buy glass beads and make jewelery to sell. I do the beading part of the necklace and hubby does the silk cord and the rest of the wirework. The handmade bead is always the centerpiece. This is an amber bead with silver leaf that is burned on it to give it a gold look.

I make lots of mix and match earrings to coordinate with.

We don't usually make handmade matching earrings but this one is mine and I DO sleep with the beadmaker.

This is another of my personal pieces so I get 5 handmade beads on this one all made to my specifications. What a guy!

When I first suggested making face beads hubby just couldn't believe he could do it-but I did. These are hard to make and Never sold either. It's the only time I recall us discussing makeup colors! The wires are on them because they hang on the knobs of my stereo. You don't have to wear beads to enjoy them.

Imaginative, creative, FUN.

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Decorative Greenhouse Startup

Category: bethie's world | Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:00 pm

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We got our old windows and some assorted junk and we are ready to roll. Here's some old spindles and stuff from the dump we will decorate it with. The headboard in the back is oak and will probably end up with stained glass panels in it for another time.

I have primed all the windows and the first thing we do for the four windows for the body is to take off aluminum strips and rip the edges to get rid of the grooved parts. We save these strips for later use. We are predrilling all the holes and using screws. This is a two person job as the windows are unwieldly. Now the box is made. The door will be taken off and hinged later.

We throw this dropcloth on the floor so we can kneel on it since it's cold but when we turn around... My Sheppies have taken over.

The feet are cut off some old bed footboard and are put on. The round ones are in front. Mark this stuff or you are sure to get confused.

For the roof we hold up these slightly larger windows and measure the angle. After figuring out our fractions we see that our miter saw will not cut this deep so we decide to go with a 45 degree angle. Once we put it on there will be only a very tiny gap that we'll caulk on the inside when building and on the outside after it is in place. We take the roof back off and rip the very point off the roofline so the dowel can lay flat. The dowel is not affixed at this point.

Now we take the little strips we ripped off the windows and use these to hold the glass in place. The strips are put on with our little brad gun. You could use little nails or even a good glue for this.

The picture shows what the glass will be put against then more strips will be put in front of the glass to sandwich it in. The grooves left on the edge will have dowels in them. Now we are done for this weekend.
Hubby has had his sandblasting equipment out recently so I ask him if he will blast some glass for me if I get it ready. He gives me "the look." He asks me if he has ever said no to me. Actually he hasn't but I don't push it.
First contac paper is put on the window, no air bubbles allowed. Then the pattern is put on the other side of the window. Now the pattern is cut out with a razor knife and pulled off. This photo is of the door.

Now the door is blasted and the trim painted. I got this doorknob set at the junkyard.

The roof triangle is done. I have laid it on my bed so it will show up good. Hubby was pleased to see our initials on it. I know this way it CAN'T be sold! Look close and you will see where I forgot to cut out one flower center! AAARGGGH!

We cut and paint the spindles and such. We put the glass in the roof front. The back glass we think we will put mirror in. If we hang a windchime in the roof it will reflect nicely. Here is where we are now.




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Christmas Presents, Past & Present

Category: bethie's world | Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 10:23 pm

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Well, hubby and I just finished several new pieces and I thought I would put them in. First I thought I would show some past presents. Someone nicely loaned me their scanner.
Some things made out of wood. We were lucky enough to be offered some wood off a barn being torn down and we decided to make this large Tenn. Flag for our local library. We love books! Hubby even hung it for them.

This fish was carved and then woodburned.

These all swam away one Christmas.

Birdhouse clocks for everyone.

Little greenhouses one year.

Yes, I am on my own Christmas list!

I made this pattern for some kinfolks that long for HOME.

Color makes a big difference.

Of course our main love is stained glass. This was a baby shower gift.

Hubby's Mom is a wonderful seamstress. We were able to solder real pins to this piece.

There's always a cat lover on your list.

And an owl lover too.

This is a mosaic piece I just finished this morning. It was inspired by my lusting after Zuzu's orchids.

Just finished this one also.

Back to work for me.


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Trellis/mosaic project

Category: bethie's world | Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:19 pm

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Hubby and I just finished this piece for a client. She just had her house painted so her plants are cut way back and she wanted a change. She wanted a large mosaic centerpiece for the wall so I looked at her space.

I suggested instead of just a mosaic floating on the wall that we incorporate it into a trellis that will give some vertical interest to the space. My hubby agrees to build it.
My husband cuts out the concrete backer board into a two and a half foot octagon for the mosaic plaque. Now the part of the glass that is cut with a glass cutter is cut and glued with silicone glue.

I found this design on the web and just loved it. On the blue side it is a moon face also. Now all the rest of the pieces will be cut with mosaic glass pliers. Snap, snap snap. If you can't cut glass the whole piece could be made this way to good effect. Now I am piecing and glueing. I am going with black grout so the blue pieces around the rays are glued very tightly against them. This is more labor intensive than if the grout was a different color but I want black grout.

Days later I am finally done with the piecing. It now sits 48 hours for maximum glue curing.

Now hubby works his magic with the grout. He is GOOD at this.

Now we decide the dimensions and start the trellis. It's made out of treated deck boards that hubby rips. It will be attached to the house itself but the trellis will be two inches from the wall so a plant can climb it.

Now hubby goes and installs it and all are pleased.

In the meantime I make this fun planter from Hummingbird's recipe.

Then I glass it and hubby grouts it. Now I just need to get a plant.... That's a problem I LIKE.


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