Fused Glass Overload!

One of my Mum's friends showed an interest in buying some of my fused glass for Christmas presents which means I had to finally get off my arse and do something about photographing some of my pieces. Having done that I thought I would share them with you here!



Fused glass is one of my favourite things to make. Its not a very practical hobby - you need a pretty big and expensive kiln for starters (I do a class) - but it is such a fun thing to do.


I have been doing a fused glass class for about a year and a half now and I love it. Playing around with light and colours is soooo much fun.


It does mean however that I now have loads of pieces of fused glass hanging around my (fairly small) flat!



This is only a very small proportion of what I have made!!


There are also lots of flat pieces which I made when I was starting out to practice. They are very pretty but not very useful so I'm not sure what to do with them!


One thing I have made quite a lot of is jewellery. Its really good for giving as presents and, luckily, it doesn't take up too much space!!

I started stockpiling fused glass pieces, in particular lots of jewellery, a while ago with the intention of opening a folksy shop. Now I'm not so sure - I already have a folksy shop selling some of my sewn pieces and I'm not sure its not more bother than its worth - any thoughts? I think I might write a separate post about this soon......!


I was thinking I might look into doing a craft fair instead........

At the moment it is just nice to have all these pretty, sparkly things around my house! Not to mention a necklace to go with every outfit!

Unfortunately I won't be doing the class again after Christmas - its an expensive class and I think I need some time off to get my inspiration back to make the most of the classes. Plus I need to find someway of getting rid of all the glass pieces I have already made!


On the off chance that anyone reading this is interested in buying any of these pieces (or even fancies doing a swap?) then please feel free to get in touch. But mainly I just hope you have enjoyed looking at some of these sparkly things I have hanging round my house!

Have a lovely week xxx

PS. Sorry for the sporadic posting recently - have been having a very busy time! But I have also been working on lots of presents and decorations for Christmas so should have lots of exciting things to share with you soon!

New Octomonsters!

Just a quick post today - I thought I'd show you a couple of octomonsters I've just finished.

I've done this design before and they've been popular so I thought I'd have another go. I'll be popping them in my folksy shop as soon as it stops raining for long enough to get some decent photos. These are quicker to make than the ones with the hand stitched dots on them so I will be able to charge less and hopefully entice someone to buy them! That's the idea anyway....

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

Dotty x

PS. I have given my parents the stained glass lightcatcher (from the previous post) and they seem to be very pleased with it - hurrah!

Creating a buzzzzz!

Just a quick post today - I thought I'd show some pictures of a softie I made recently as a gift.


He's been received now so I don't have to hide him any longer!



I was thinking of making some more to pop in my folksy shop. What do you think?



I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Dotty xx

Exciting Times

Its been over a week since my last post - eeeek! I've had a bit of a tough week with very little crafting but some exciting things have been happening in my absence.

Firstly, thanks for all the lovely comments on the Disco Fish I featured in my last post. I had some great comments and emails and a couple have people have asked if I sell them or sell a kit to make them. I don't sell them at the moment but I'm currently thinking about prices and whether to make them into kits or not. I'll keep you posted! Thanks for all your support guys :-)


The lovely Patti from It's a Wonderful... was so taken with the fish that she featured them on her fab blog. And look at the little bubbles she added to my pic - such a cute idea. Thanks Patti :-)

Buoyed by every ones comments on the fish I decided to submit a picture of them to the One Pretty Thing flickr pool. If you don't read this blog then you MUST check it out - it is basically a roundup of all the craftiness going on in the blogosphere - loads of tutorials, advice, party ideas, giveaways....everything you could want really. It is one of my favourite blogs so imagine my excitement when I saw this post - my disco fish are featured - I am so proud. Thanks Rachel :-)

As if all this wasn't enough I got an email yesterday from Alex (full name Aleximo Croissant!) telling me that my strawberries had been featured in a strawberry based posting on the FolksyFinds blog. If you want to check out all the other lovely strawberries featured then take a look here. Thanks Alex :-)

I'm so excited I might burst!! And its motivated me to get back to my machine so hopefully I'll have some new goodies to show you soon....

Dotty xx

Fab weekend :o)

This weekend was one of the best I've had in ages and it was full of crafty goodness. Most of the weekend was spent at a fab workshop in London playing with these:




Yummy mosaic tiles. I've wanted to learn how to mosaic for ages so my hopes were pretty high for the course. I wasn't disappointed. Our teacher, Jo, took us through the basics of nipping mosaic tiles into different shapes and how to fix them and then we were away. After drawing a brief sketch on a piece of mdf we started nipping tiles into shape and sticking them to our boards. First we were all quite nervous - gently nibbling at the tiles but after half an hour or so small pieces of glass and ceramic were flying everywhere as we descended into a nipping frenzy. I was in heaven - the tiles were all so pretty and shiny and I got to play with them.

The design I had in mind before I arrived was for some stylised modern poppies but it turns out that red is one of the rarer shades of tile and there were no enough variations to make my plan work. In contrast green and blue came in every shade you could imagine since most tiles are made for the swimming pools! As I worked I started to understand the shapes I could make and the properties of the different tiles and adapted my design accordingly.

These were the results at the end of the first day:

During the second day of the workshop I really started to get the hang of cutting and placing the tiles. I was able to shape the tiles more accurately and I place them closer together. This was great although it did have the unfortunate side effect that I wanted to redo all the parts I did on Saturday! I resisted the temptation to do this (knowing I would never finish if I did) and this was the result by mid afternoon yesterday:

The last part of the process was to grout the tiles. As the colours I used were all quite light I went for a light grey grout. Its amazing the different that grouting makes - it completely changes the design. This was the finished result:

I am really pleased with it. It looks nothing like my original plan but it is more professional looking than I ever expected. I can't say that it is what I would do if I had the chance again - I would do something in much brighter colours (I think mine is a little wishy!) with different patterns (I'd like to do something more geometric I think) - but that is what learning is all about. One of the other great things on the course was seeing what everyone else was doing and seeing how it developed. I'd really like to have another go now I have a better understanding of what can be done with the tiles, how the colours look and what the grouting does to the design.

In the middle of the mosaic-ing weekend I also found some time on Saturday night to make 20 cards for my mum whilst watching a recording of Kirstie's Homemade home (my quilt is never going to be as good as hers!). The cards are good luck cards for my mum to give to the other performers in the amateur show she is in (it has a Mexican theme!). I think they are quite effective for something so cheap and quick to make:

Just before I stumbled off to bed last night exhausted but happy something supremely exciting and momentous happened. At 20.41 exactly I made my FIRST EVER SALE in my folksy shop. I am so pleased. YAY!

This little fella is already winging his way to a new owner. I know I will miss him but I'm happy to share his love with someone else! Plus, there is plenty more where that came from...

Now off to art class....

Dotty xx

Shameless plug....

I've bitten the bullet, taken the bull by the horns, jumped in the deep end and.....um......other similar phrases. I've opened up my own little shop on folksy. Yay - how exciting!

Its got these:

And these:

And these:

And these:

And these:

(For those of you who don't know, folksy is similar to etsy but is based in the UK and prices are in UK pounds.)

I opened the shop a couple of weeks ago but have now finally got round to stocking it properly. I'm really pleased because a few of people have added it to their favourite shops already. I think the first couple of sales must be the hardest because at that stage there is no feedback on you to reassure buyers.

If you'd like to take a look round then click here or on the folksy button on the right hand side. I'd love it if you would. No pressure to buy anything of course, but any feedback would be gratefully received. Any views on the pictures, descriptions and, in particular, the prices, would be very useful. I promise not to be offended! Its so hard to decide what to charge. I started off by looking at other peoples products to see what they charged but that confused me even more!

I've also been thinking about setting up an etsy shop but can't decide whether to or not. I think more people would see the products if I did but I'm not sure if its worth it with the current exchange rate. I think I'll see how things go on folksy - can't wait until I make a sale!!

Hope you are having all having a lovely bank holiday weekend. I'm off to some gardens and a craft fair tomorrow so hoping to come back brimming with inspiration :o)

Dotty xx

Busy, busy, busy.....

Sorry for the lack of updates around here recently, I've been a very busy bee! (Note: I didn't take this pic - I didn't have the energy to chase bees round the garden waiting for the perfect shot!)

Working on some cactus pin cushions for my folksy shop. (Geddit, catctus - pins, needles.....man, i'm a genius ;o) )

Playing with my parents camera and taking pics of my mum's beautiful orchids.

Working on my PIF gifts for Sue, Wilkie and Sandra. (If you still want to get involved then visit their blogs and find out if they have any places left or who their gifts will be going to.)

Tending to my sunflower seeds. (I know most people grow sunflowers when they are about 8 but I love sunflowers and clearly I'm a late bloomer!)

Helping my Dad clear up this tip (this is less than a quarter of the junk - he has issues throwing things away!!)

Experimenting with my felt balls (more of which in a later post!)

Enjoying the rare British sunshine. So rare in fact that when I tired to take a sunshiney picture below the sun went in!

Taking my first painting and drawing class. Not sure about the results but it was fun :o)

All of which I present as an explanation for not giving you the bloggy love you deserve! And also a chance to show you what I've been up to. I'll be back with some proper crafty bloginess soon.

Dotty xx

Folksy Shop & New Creations

A few people have asked me if I've ever thought about selling my creations. My parents have also suggested it but I think they may have different reasons - their house is overrun with my various projects! I have been wondering about it. I spend ages on etsy and folksy looking at all the beautiful things people have made. Its quite intimidating and makes me think that the things I've made can't even compete! There are so many talented people out there. After umming and erring about it I have decided to throw caution to the wind and open a folksy shop - just to see what happens....after all there's nothing to lose!

I haven't had much time to put much in my shop yet. I'll put a link up when I've had time to upload some more items. In the meantime, here are some pics of some plush strawberries I've made which are in the shop. I'm addicted to making these - they are so fun to make.

I'm of to take some pics of some more things to upload to my shop. If anyone reading this has an etsy or folksy shop I'd be interested in any tips you have - please leave me comments!

Dotty xx

PS. There is still one place left to pay it forward if you want me to send you something lovely and handmade.