Shooting Stars – Mixed Media Stained Glass and Chainmaille

I’ve been plugging right along in the endeavor of creating mixed media pieces where I combine stained glass with chainmaille. The latest result: shooting stars.

Byzantine star - mixed media stained glassPreviously, I had been making all glass shooting stars from a sort of stock pattern I found on line, but I would often get frustrated with the narrow pieces in the tail, having a lot of breakage. It’s been a goal for a long while to create my own shooting stars as the glass ornaments have been fairly popular. Then I recently was playing around with making chainmaille byzantine stars, a fun looking piece I’d seen in many places online. The stars were smaller than I thought they’d turn out to be, about an inch across. And then it occurred to me – this might work for a new shooting star!

Shooting stars - mixed media stained glass chainmailleNext step was the tail for the shooting stars. Now, I can’t really draw worth anything, but a few passes and flourishes with pencil on paper, and I had something, a three piece tail. Not being one to start small, I immediately traced and cut 9 samples in various colors and glass textures. Looking at the cut glass with a star, the three piece tail felt like it might be a hair too much proportionally, so I took off the top piece on three, and the bottom piece on three others, giving me three versions. I kinda like all three!

I made enough chainmaille stars to match up the glass I had cut, and now I am off and running! The overall length is about 4 inches. Width of the glass depends on two or three pieces. Widest point on the 2 piece is 1 1/2″, and on the three piece version, it’s about 2″. There are many color option between the rings in the stars, and the colors for glass.

Check the Etsy store to see what’s available at any given time, with each ornament being $10. Or, make a custom request for your own colors!

 

Mixed Media Wreaths – stained glass and chain/scale maille

I am delighted to finally offer the first of hopefully numerous mixed media projects where I combine stained glass with chain maille and scale maille!

scale maille flowersA little background… Every summer I spend a week in Maine at a fantastic place called ‘Camp’ Camp. It’s a camp for LGBT adults, and I’ve been going since 2008. I actually teach stained glass while there. Happily, I also get to enjoy other offerings during the week. For the last few years, I’ve taken chain maille classes from my friend, Jason. He’s passionate and patient and has created a lot of new maillers as a result of his excellent class. It was not long after returning home the first year I got to try it out that I started digging into that form more deeply, discovering far more than the word of jewelry and other wearables (though I have been making a lot of bracelets and other things to practice). Wheels started turning about how I could combine glass and maille, to make some new and hopefully exciting, enticing things.

Last week, I pulled up some photos I had taken of leaves a few years ago when walking around Lake Waban at Wellesley College, and created a wreath pattern to make in glass. Meanwhile, I received some supplies and the flower tutorial from The Ring Lord for ways to fill that wreath. Then it was just a matter of making both elements, and making them work together.

Stained glass wreath scale maille flowerJust in time for Mother’s Day, or even just to have something new and different in your window, I am delighted to release this line of flowers that will never wilt, never need watering!

There are two sizes available, at about 7″ wide ($45 each, plus shipping) and about 5″ wide ($35 each, plus shipping). Specific details are included with each photo. Each flower right now is different, and I utilized a variety of different green and clear glass options to make the wreaths for each one. The only way to know how they will each look is to make them! Clear glue chip already offers a really cool natural look, with the appearance of leaves, twigs, etc ’embedded’ in the glass. And Pilkington makes a clear glass called Autumn that has the texture and shape of leaves in it. I really like how it looks on the larger wreath. Clear glue chip works great for both sizes of wreaths.

Please enjoy the photos below, visit the Etsy shop if you’d like to put one of these in YOUR window (or your mom’s!) and let me know what you think. I will be happy to customize flowers and glass for future versions of these, if people have specific desires along those lines. Thanks!

Shattered Glass Ceiling postcards

Shattered Glass Ceiling postcards are here!

Order below or read on for all of the details before ordering.

My first new project of 2017 is taking me in a slightly different direction. After the United States election result in November 2016, we are seeing a heightened level of civic engagement on every level and from every corner. It occurred to me that the concept of shattered glass and shattered glass ceilings can manifest in a variety of ways as we continue to work at removing all of those last barriers.

Shattered glass ceiling postcard - blue backgroundTo that end, I have decided to make postcards with shattered glass ceiling images that can be used to send notes to elected officials to make our feelings known.

Postcards are standard 4×6 size, with a matte backside for an easy writing surface, and a UV protected gloss coating on the front side image. I am offering four cards, and photos of them are here in this post – blue background, purple background, pink background, and black and white. Due to my own error, the purple cards do NOT have the UV coating on the front in the first printing. The back of all of the cards is a bit more slick than expected, but ball point pen works just fine on them. Gel ink smears even after a fair amount of drying time.

Depending on how these go, I may expand to add a rainbow background, and other single colors.

Shattered glass ceiling postcard - black and whitePlease use the PayPal button below to place an order going to a location in the United States, or visit my Etsy shop to order there. I’ve limited the quantity offerings here but if you would like a different quantity from what is listed, please contact me directly. Please specify in the order what color(s) you would like. Postage/handling is included with the prices by quantity below. Thank you!

Available: pink, blue, purple, black and white, or a combination of your choosing.

 

Pricing below includes postage/handling in the United States
What color(s) for the cards?




If you are outside of the United States and want cards, we can do that case by case so I can get a more accurate postage amount for your location. Thank you!

 

Shattered glass ceiling postcard - purple background pink shattered glass ceiling postcards

 

Stained glass nightlights with butterfly, dragonfly, breaching whale, peace sign

My goodness this is starting off as a very creative and productive year. I think I am up to about 7 or 8 new patterns in just this first quarter! In today’s news, I’m talking about nightlights. I never really anticipated that nightlights would become such a significant part of my catalog, but here we are. I am delighted to offer 5 new designs.

The details.

There are now two butterfly nightlights. One is just a butterfly alone, simple and pretty and wonderfully illuminating. It measures 4″ across and 3 1/4″ long. Cost is $25 each. I also wanted to try something a little fuller, so tweaked some nightlight backdrop panels to invoke grass or leaves, and put one of my ‘regular’ size butterfly ornaments on top of the backdrop. It is around 5 1/4″ wide  and 3 3/4″ long. Since I was trying this backdrop with a small butterfly, I tried it also with my dragonfly ornament. Measurements are the same. Both of these are $35 each. Colors can vary in all respects.

bluebutterflylight pinkbutterflylight
whitebutterflylight yellowbutterflylight
yellowdragonflylight bluedragonflylight

The breaching whale light uses the same base as the whale tail nightlight I started making a couple of years ago. The back panels are split into two pieces each, to imply water and sky. I have a beautiful blue/green glass for the water which to me nicely mimics the waters of New England where I’ve been fortunate enough to see humpback and minke whales breach (it’s amazing). The nightlight has a humpback. The sky panels can be a variety of different glasses to get that effect; so far I’ve used a blue/white/purple, and a lighter blue/green, all ‘swirly’ to be a little more dramatic. The whale itself is white in the flippers and blue in the body. Measures 5 1/4″ wide by 3 1/2″ long. Price is $35 each, for both the breaching whale and whale tail nightlights. Am including photos of both for reference. The whale tail light here has a more transparent back panel than I usually tend to use, but you will be able to see some contrast and possibilities.

breachingwhalelight whaletaillight

Finally, there is the peace sign nightlight. This has been requested by a few people, and my challenge has been to make sure I have enough solder seams on which I can securely attach the nightlight clip which holds the base. I wound up doing a ring around the peace sign, keeping the sign itself simple by continuing to use the seams to make the symbol. The ring allows for a wide array of color options. The center can also be any color, really. The peace sign nightlight measures 3 1/2″ across, so it is nice and small and can fit just about anywhere. Price is $30 each. Postage is additional on all stained glass.

rainbowpeacelight bluewhitepeacelight
purplegreenpeace

Personally, I don’t like to see a nightlight bulb through the glass, so I try to find nice colorful glass which is translucent enough to glow but not so transparent as to show the bulb, or at least not show it much. I apply this translucency goal to all nightlights I make. For the peace sign, because the bulb sits entirely behind the sign itself, more transparent glass can be used around the outside, with just the provision that the clip can be seen through the bottom piece.

Note – the measurements here are all glass only. The base adds another couple of inches to each piece.

In these chaotic days out there in the world, wouldn’t you like a new little bit of light in your life? Contact me to place an order, or ask any questions. Thanks so much!

Stained Glass Home Plate – baseball theme

Baseball is American’s past time, right? Whether you play or are a fan of baseball or softball, this new stained glass home plate project is for you! But there is more to this than just an homage to these sports. Let me tell you the story.

1playballhomeplate-putnamlrEvery summer, I go to ‘Camp’ Camp, a week long summer camp for LGBT adults which takes place in Maine. It’s the base for a community of people which may have originally come together at random, but form strong friendships which are active all year round. One of our Campers, Eden, has been fighting kidney disease for many years. In June 2015, she received a kidney transplant from a living donor, and got a new chance at life.

And then in early January of 2016, health complications arose and have knocked her for a loop ever since. She’s a good friend, and I wanted to find a way to help. Eden is a passionate fan of the Red Sox, so after some thought, I came up with the idea of this home plate project. The plate itself is white, of course, and there’s a border around the piece which can be used to alternate any team’s colors, or be any color combination at all. Over the home plate itself, I can add a variety of words in hand manipulated 20 gauge wire. I’ve done ‘play ball’ on a number of home plates, as well as ‘go mets’, ‘go nats’, ‘go sox’, and more. The possibilities here are quite numerous.

Each plate costs $40 plus shipping. For each home plate sold, I am donating $15 directly to Eden to assist with her medical expenses as she continues her fight against kidney disease. I appreciate the support of everyone who has bought a home plate piece so far, and am keeping open a ‘made to order’ listing on Etsy to facilitate additional orders.

What would you like on your home plate? What team colors are your favorites?

Stained Glass Wellesley College Lamp Icon – nightlight and suncatcher

We’re just a few weeks into 2016, and I am trying to hit the ground running. I have a lot of ideas I am hoping to bring to fruition this year. Watch this space!

Wellesley College - Galen Stone Tower and iconic lamp with post. Photo by Amy J. Putnam '90To get things started, I made a nightlight of one of my favorite icons, the lamp at Wellesley College, my alma mater. I am very lucky and privileged to have gone to school there as it’s an amazing place that has graduated many amazing human beings since 1875. It’s humbling to be amongst those folks.

We have several icons and images which are indelibly Wellesley, including a lamp post that is found all over the campus. Frequently, one might see representations of the lamp and post together, as seen in the photo here (along with one of our other icons, Galen Stone Tower). But, I haven’t been able to find a good way to do the post’s curl without ‘interrupting’ it with other seams and break lines to get the curve in there properly. So I decided to forge forward with the lamp alone.

When shopping for this piece, my goal was to find the right glass for the panes of the lamp. I really dislike seeing the light bulb behind any nightlight, so the intention is to get something that shows the light, just translucent enough. I found success with this white glass seen in the first pieces, below, and I love how the lamp just glows in front of the light.

For the round background, the school’s color is a deep blue. Each class is also assigned a color, one of four which rotates as a class graduates and new one arrives: purple, yellow, green, and red (I’m a purple class. Simply mauvelous). We also have students and alums who have attended outside of traditional college years. Because their studies often encompass more than the usual 4 years of a bachelor’s degree, they are represented by all four colors. So in making the first samples of this pattern, I did a variety of combinations to show blue with class colors either singly, or showing all four. And this certainly does not exhaust possibilities, as background can easily be all one color.

After some hemming and hawing about how to pull this off, I am pleased with the end result. Scroll down to see more about a suncatcher version of this piece.

The glass of the night light is 4 1/8″ in diameter. The length, with the nightlight works, is 5 1/2″. They are $40 each plus shipping.

Orders can be placed through the made to order listing in my Etsy shop. Contact me here or there with any questions. Thanks!

 

fourcolors-lr greenlight-lr
purplelight-lr redlight-lr

 

EDITED TO ADD:

Now there is a suncatcher, too! The pattern is essentially the same, but the overall piece is larger, coming in at 5 3/8″ in diameter. I’ve made four initial samples in that as well, pictured below. So if you don’t have need of a nightlight but would like a piece of Wellesley in your window, this lamp suncatcher could well fit the bill! They are $30 each, and I have also created a made to order listing on Etsy for these. Hanging chain is included with each one.

As with the nightlights, there is a wide range of possibilities for color layouts, with just a few seen here. Unlike the nightlights, there is a choice between two glass types for the panes of the lamp itself. I can do it in white, or in clear satin, a textured glass, which allows more natural light through. The all blue and multicolored suncatchers below have the clear satin in the lamp, while the green/blue, and all yellow versions have white glass.

allblue-sun multi-sun
greenblue-sun yellow-sun

Stained Glass Horses, Shoes, Boots, And More

Sometimes you see something that someone else has made and think, “now THAT’S cool.” This is how the inspiration for my newest array of stained glass projects came about. One of the cool things about arts and crafts tends to be about re-purposing, and this new use of old stirrups is one of my favorites so far. I thought about what patterns I would want to do, using stirrups as a base and frame, and off I went.

Stained glass horses in stirrups, withmany other pattern possibilities, too.I live in New England, and horses are quite commonplace here. So the obvious choices were to make glass pieces related to horses to use in the stirrups. I found some photos I had of horses and boots, played around in Photoshop to create the line drawings and patterns. Just for fun, I also created a form for a suncatcher to hang in a stirrup, which can wind up being just about any theme. It wasn’t long before a series of pieces came to be. I had already started the process of locating some stirrups which could be used as the frames/bases. With a few then in hand, it came down to just cleaning them up and making the glass.

The glass pieces are attached securely to the stirrups using cord. The stirrups themselves are of variable size depending on what I can find and when, though the glass pieces are consistently sized. Some have the rubber pads, and some don’t. I am happy to take orders, but time for fulfillment depends simply on availability of the used stirrups. Know some place looking to get rid of English iron stirrups in New England? Let me know.

The horse heads and boots will also be made available as stand alone ornaments, new photos of those to come separately. Horses will be $15, and boots $10, sold as singles rather than a joined pair. I am happy to do them in whatever colors you would like. For the stirrups – pieces with just a horse head or just a horse shoe are $35 each plus shipping. Stirrups with a horse head in a horse shoe, small panel, or pair of boots are $45 each plus shipping.

Check out the gallery of the first pieces made!

Stained Glass Yellow Rubber Ducky

Even though I haven’t posted anything for a while, I’ve been keeping busy. I have several new patterns in development as well, but I wanted to end the silence by first posting about this stained glass yellow rubber ducky that I made in late July. I could not post about it until now because it was a gift for a friend whose baby just arrived a short while ago (congrats, Kat and Justin!). The ducky was commissioned by Kat’s mom, as the nursery was decorated in yellow ducks.

4duckyI went around on line to look at various patterns available, and wasn’t thrilled with any of them. The shape of the duck makes it bottom-heavy by default, and I wanted to make sure I constructed one which was not going to separate as a result. I didn’t really want to do a panel-type of piece, ducky and background, just a ducky.

Luckily, I had a rubber ducky of my own, in ‘electric blue’ I call it. So I grabbed my camera and took a bunch of photos. I wound up using a composite of two photos to get the side wings and angle of the head, allowing for good seams in which I could add hooks for chain, and also giving the piece a bit of personality.

I am pretty happy with the result, and Jill (Kat’s mom) was as well. If Kat and Justin ever catch up on sleep, I’ll get their reactions, too. So far, I have made just the one ducky, in the traditional yellow, but it can certainly be made in other colors, too. The piece measures approximately 6 1/2″ wide and about 7″ long. I have black jack chain on this one for hanging. I used a fairly dense but still translucent yellow and white wispy glass for the body which just glows when the sun is behind it. The beak is an orange wispy glass. Cost is $30 each.

7rubberduckyglass-Putnam 2rubberduckyglass-Putnam

What do you think of it?

Stained Glass Sailboats

It has long been in my mind to create a pattern for stained glass sailboats. Many people love boats, love the water, and boats are a popular image and collectible. After sketching out some ideas for my own sailboat pattern, I also spent a few days looking at countless images of other stained glass sailboats, boats on the water, sails and sail colors. I wanted my pattern(s) to be unique and yet also easily recognizable.

Stained glass sailboat after being cut and foiled.After all of that research, I opened up a new file in photoshop and started using the tools to create a neat pattern (ie better than my poorly hand drawn start up). After getting one to my satisfaction, I opted to modify it a little to allow for more color possibilities. The results are a pattern with a couple of stripes, and a pattern with more stripes.

I made four initial samples, two in each pattern version. I am hoping these sailboats will resonate with anyone who enjoys being out on the water and wants a reminder of that in their own windows. The resulting pieces came out pretty well, I believe, though I may tweak the multiple stripe pattern a little. If I do, updated photos will be added here and to the sailboats album.

The finished pieces are the same size regardless of pattern. They measure about 5.5″ across by 5.25″ long. Pricing will be $30 for the pattern with the paired stripes, and $35 for the multi-stripe pattern. Shipping is extra. Hanging chain and suction cups are included. I love that the color possibilities are pretty much unlimited with both patterns. I have a feeling I will be spending a lot more time looking at photos of sails to get more ideas!

I invite your feedback, and your orders. Thanks for reading! Check out the sailboats gallery for more photos.

 

Stained glass sailboat with two stripe sail. $30 plus shipping. Stained glass sailboat with multi stripe sail. $35 plus shipping.
Stained glass sailboat with two stripe sail. $30 plus shipping. Stained glass sailboat with multi stripe sail. $35 plus shipping.