Pelican Beach Pendant
Welcome to our first monthly fused glass jewelry tutorial! Each
month, I will share a new design using our
fusible glass decals.
I love to teach and share my designs with fellow glass enthusiasts. This is why
I came up with all these snazzy,
glass fusing decals for your pieces!
I spend a lot of time actually designing individual pieces, rather than making
slabs and producing large batches. I have a sketch book with hundreds
of designs and with the constant new development of fusing products
I find that almost any scene can come to life using glass. This Pelican Beach
pendant was created using very little dichroic glass. Try making some
pieces without the glitzy dichroic glass, and see what your mind comes up with.
You will be surprised! Please let me know if you need any assistance
with this project! info@aaeglass.com.
Materials Needed:
Tropical Scenes Fusing Decal Sheet
(DL-120)
White Fusible Glass
Blue (your choice of shade) Fusible Glass
Dichroic aqua glass
Glass Line White Paint
Frit Blend
Glue
Dremel
Paint Brush or Paint Stick
Glass cutter & breaker
Step 1: Cut your glass blanks. I used a 2"H x 1"W white opal glass blank.
For your second layer, cut a white piece of glass that is 1" x 1" for the bottom
(the beach) and a 1" x 1" blue/turquoise for the top (ocean.) Glue these pieces
to your white base piece.
Step 2: To create the beach area, I use my own frit blend. I have lots of these
made up, and this will take some planning on your part, but I love making
these blends. In this case I used "beach sand" colors of frit, put them in a
large jar and simply stirred the frit colors with a Popsicle stick to get a nice
blend. Put your blend in a container and mark the blend. This blend
is simply called "beach blend" for me and I used tan, amber, shell & black.
Take your WHITE GLASSLINE paints and spread the paint over the bottom
portion of your piece. While the paint is still wet, add your frit blend to the bottom.
Step 3: Take your Dremel (etching creme will also work if you do not
own a Dremel) equipped with your diamond tip, and literally "draw"
wavy lines in your blue dichroic glass. The dichoric side must be facing
up in order for your design to be etched into the glass! Glue the dichroic
piece to the blue part of the glass. Your underlying blue will show through
the dichoric glass you just etched revealing your wavy lines simulating
the ocean.
Step 4: Go back to your glass line white paint and use a small paint brush
or the tip of the bottle to add accents to the ocean water indicating
the surf. Do this sparingly!
Step 5: Fire your piece to a full fuse face down on a kiln washed or thin fire paper
shelf. YOU MUST WAIT FOR THE GLASS LINE PAINT TO DRY FIRST.
Step 6: Once the piece has cooled, add your clear cap and full fuse again.
Step 7: Cold work your piece with a grinder or tile saw (or both.) Fire polish
your creation.
Step 8: Apply your low-fire pelican decal from your
tropical scenes sheet. (
AAEGlass for full decal
applying instructions.) LET DRY OVERNIGHT! Do NOT cap clear!
Your decal will go on your finished, fire polished piece.
Step 9: Fire your LOW FIRE fusing decal to the low fire schedule provided.
These schedules, along with full instructions, can also be found on our
website at www.aaeglass.com. Add a bail of your choice. Viola! Masterpiece!
