Project 20: Eye, Eye Captain!

Even though it's Monday, this is last week's project. Oops. Better late than never I suppose. For this project, I decided to make something for me! My glasses case is falling apart, so I decided to make myself a new one. A glass box is pretty, but certainly not practical as an eyeglass case. I can't really throw it into my bag and hit the road. So I guess I can't replace my crappy glasses case quite yet. 

See? Falling apart.

The Process:

So I decided to base my box around a geode type thing that I found at the Bead Garden. 

The first step was to design the box. I made a pattern and cut out my pieces.

The lid of my box was the only section that actually had a design to it, instead of being a solid sheet  of glass. So I treated the lid like it's its own separate window and put it together as such. 

Tack soldered.

I soldered it together.

Fully soldered!

After the lid was done, I focused on the rest of the box. I soldered the sides of the box together first.

Then I soldered the base of the box on.

The lid is not attached to the box itself. It's attached to a hinge, which is attached to the base of the box. I use a pin hinge for my boxes and that's basically two metal rods, one inside the other. One rod is attached to the lid and the other is attached to the base and one spins around the other. Does that make sense? I feel like that was not a good explanation, but whatever.

High tech way to attach the hinge: Masking Tape.

The final step, besides cleaning, is to attach a chain to the lid of the box. Without the chain, the lid is more likely to come off the box.

Final Product:

An artsy angle.

My glasses fit!

I feel like I'm spying on my glasses...

Exciting News: I was accepted to be a part of the Jenkintown Arts Festival. This is a juried art show, so I will get to display some of my work (maybe even sell it?). I'll post more information when the time is closer, but I'm pretty stoked about it.

Project 19: Light at the End of the Tunnel

This week I made a kaleidoscope! Now, I did not come up with the design for this. I followed directions to make it, so it might be cheating? I'm not sure. But I've always wanted to make one. I've only seen kits to make kaleidoscopes and they usually have some fancy pieces in them. Thus, I always assumed I'd need a kit to make one, but I found a design that I could do with the materials on hand. Sweet! I tried to take pictures of the designs inside the kaleidoscope and only had marginal success. 

The Process:

The most important aspect of a kaleidoscope is the mirrors on its inside. I cut out three mirror rectangles and made them into a "tube". 

Yes, the tube is held together with tape.

As you can see, the light bounces around the tube and creates many copies of whatever is at the bottom of the tube. So that's where the geometric pattern comes from.

Besides the mirrors, the other main parts of the Kaleidoscope are the outer-casing for the mirrors and the end chamber which holds the pretty colored pieces of glass and beads. I cut out the pieces for these two chambers.

Then, I soldered the outer chamber together. I cut out a triangle of clear glass and soldered it so one end of the chamber to act as a cap.

Then, I slid my mirrored tube into its casing and soldered another clear piece of glass onto the open end of the chamber. 

Mirrors!

Next, I needed to make an eye piece. This is really more for aesthetic purposes so the trick with the mirrors won't be revealed. 

I soldered the eye piece into place and the main part of the kaleidoscope was complete!

To make the end chamber, I put together another triangle out of clear glass and capped one end of the chamber. I acid etched one side of this clear glass to make it translucent instead of transparent.

Then, I filled the chamber with glass scraps and beads. For future reference, using translucent items is a good idea. Those big pink beads are not see-through and when you hold the scope up to the light they look like black circles. So that's my warning for any future kaleidoscope makers.

The last step was to solder the end chamber onto the main body of the kaleidoscope. I found myself very frustrated with the solder lines in this project. The instructions specified that I should not use flux, a paste that helps the solder melt and stick, because it gets the glass dirty and grimy and if the flux were to seep into one of the chambers, I wouldn't be able to clean it out. Since a kaleidoscope is all about what you see, dirty glass is no good. The long and the short of it is that my solder lines really don't look very good, which is disappointing. But hopefully you can't tell from the pictures!

Final Product:

Project 18: I Saw the Light

So this week I decided to try my hand at mosaic making. A mosaic is a picture or decoration made of small, usually colored pieces of inlaid stone or glass. I have never made a mosaic before, so I went to my fav craft store and got a mosaic votive candle kit. Basically I made a candle holder into a mosaic. The kit came complete with glass tiles, candle holder, adhesives and grout. Everything I'd need! The kit came with enough stuff to make two candle holders, but I only made one since I wasn't sure how it would go. You can't really tell from static pictures, but the design is supposed to resemble a wave. 

The Process:

The first step in mosaic-ing is to break the glass tiles into smaller pieces. So I put my tiles into a bag and took it onto my porch and smashed them with a hammer. It was quite fun actually. Next step is to take an adhesive, which smells terrible and apparently isn't good to get on your skin, and glue the glass pieces into place on the candle holder.

One of the reasons this project is late, besides my lack of time, is that the glue needed to dry overnight. I thought I could knock this out in a day. Not the case! The next step is to grout the mosaic.

Yummy!

Grouting the mosaic apparently just means spreading sludge all over the top of the tiles and working it into the crevices between the tiles.

At this point, I was skeptical that the grout was going to come off the tiles...

The last step is to let the grout dry a little and then wipe off the excess. Technically, I was supposed to let the grout dry for a full 12 hours, but I didn't have the patience so I let it dry for 3. I polished the glass tiles up (vegetable oil is apparently the way to go) and lit the candle!

Final Product: