How to Make Glass Jewelry

Materials: (all COE 96 – except Float Glass)
Black Magic Kit
Crystal Dream Kit
Dichroic Kit
Glass Sheets – Standard and Thin
Glass Assortment Packages – Opaque Standard, Float Standard and Translucent Thin
Decorative Effects Packages – Noodles, Dichroic, Coated, Irridized, etc.
Tools - Cutters, Runners, Nibblers, Grinder, Morton Board, Glue,
Imagination

Remember, wear your safety glasses when cutting glass. Have band-aids and Neosporin on hand.
Pendants and earrings aren’t big. Most people make the mistake of starting out with too big a piece of glass. Cut out a SMALL piece for your first pendant – probably no more than 1 ¼” x 1 ¼” for your first piece.

Remember – with all regular COE96 pieces – cut your thin clear caps so they are SLIGHTLY bigger than the bottoms – as they shrink in the firing.

Use craft glue like Elmer’s to hold glass nibbles, noodles, enamels, etc. in place. The Gel works best!

After glue dries, cut fiber paper to fit under glass. It should be larger than the piece.

Place fiber paper under glass on kiln shelf.

All the glass used in making these jewelry projects should fire in your special glass kiln. The kilns in our glass packages were chosen for price and to allow you to plug them into a 120 Volt with a dedicated 20 amp circuit. You may want to make sure nothing else is running on that circuit when the kiln is plugged in to it. When you buy the kiln with a package from us, I will talk you through your first test fire and first jewelry fire and programming the kiln.
COE96 glass, like in your packages, and used in the process of these jewelry projects in the special glass kilns, should fire at 500 degrees per hour from 0 up to 1465 degrees with a 10-16 minute hold. We will program your kiln for this so all you have to do is push the buttons each time you fire. And it will be easier than pushing the buttons on your big kilns.

Wear kiln safety glasses and gloves when opening your kiln.

If piece is rough on edges, it can be filed down with the grinder in your glass package.
Wear goggles and dust mask when filing.

Try these different project ‘SANDWICH’ ideas with the assortments in your packages: Remember – with sandwiches, be sure to have a 15 – 20 minute hold or soak at end of firing. And if your pieces have uneven amounts of decorative elements in between the base and the cap, there will be bubbles.

Bottom – Black Thin – Middle - noodles, enamels, opaque white – Top - clear thin cap.
Bottom - Clear or Colored Translucent Thin – Middle - dichroic or coated wavy color piece, noodle - Top - clear thin cap.
Bottom - Standard Color Opaque – Middle - other color opaque pieces, noodles – Top - thin clear cap.
Standard Float Bottom – other float or opaque pieces, enamels, dichro – no cap….(but you can if you want to) – float glass available special order only.

I would highly suggest that for classes and workshops, you create little bins or containers that have the different kinds of glass and glass pieces in them and have samples of finished pieces in front of each one. This way your customers can see for themselves what each kind of glass effect they might be able to get. All glass can be somewhat pre-cut and customers can further cut IF they have had some of your classes.

Suggested bins for:
Black Thin - (Bottoms for jewelry) (you might have some Irridized black in your assortment bags – these are beautiful as bases)
Clear Thin - (Bottoms and ALL Caps)
Standard Ming Green - (Bottoms for tiles and for other decorative effects)
Standard Clear - (Bottoms for tiles)
Standard Opaque Colors – (Bottoms for tiles, jewelry and other decorative effects.)
Thin Translucent Colors – (Bottoms for tiles, jewelry and other decorative effects.) (Don’t forget the ¼” Rule!)
Dichro, Noodles, Stringers, Enamels – (Decorative Effects)
Float Standard – (Bottoms and decorative – no caps needed) - if you try and mix your float glass with your COE96 glass, you may or may not like the results! Test first.

You should definitely play and make lots of these yourself first so you can tell your customers how-to and which pieces will give them what effects.

From there – the sky is the limit!

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