suncatcher

Mixed Media Wreaths – stained glass and chain/scale maille

Posted by Amy

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!

Stained Glass Home Plate – baseball theme

Posted by Amy

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

Posted by Amy

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!

 

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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 Yellow Rubber Ducky

Posted by Amy

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?