Saturday, April 09, 2011

Stained Glass Fun at the Nancy Drew convention

So last week while in Charlottesville, VA for a Nancy Drew convention,
we went to a place called The Glass Palette - Interactive Glass Art Studio
It was so interesting. Like one of those paint your own pottery places. You could just walk in off the street, no classes, no reservations and create a "stained glass" masterpiece. Everything is food and dishwasher safe too!! Amazing.
Why were we making our own glass creations you ask? Well, the theme of the Charlottesville Convention was The Hidden Window Mystery. Nancy Drew is looking for a lost stained glass window that came over from England and has been lost for centuries.
She believes that the Charlottesville area is the perfect place to search for this window. While in Virginia, she tours Monticello and Ashlawn, so we did that too. She also goes canoeing, but we didn't do that. Sometimes you just can't fit in all the Nancy Drew activities!!
Most of the folks at the convention created Peacock stained glass items. Again a nod to the Nancy Drew book. In the book, peacocks at an old southern mansion are considered spooky and mysterious. Also the Hidden Window of the book's title depicts a knight with a peacock on his shield. The cover of the Original Nancy Drew book also features a peacock.

Here are some examples of before and after firing of one of the pieces made by our group. Gina Travis created this peacock and it will be molded into a "sushi dish". We had several different options of items to make from dishes and jewelry to sun-catchers and picture frames. The prices depend on the size of the item you want to make. Everything was very reasonably priced. It is not true stained glass, but fused glass. The pieces of glass are melted together in a kiln.
It was so much fun to work with the glass pieces. We had tools for cutting the glass into smaller pieces and there were so many colors!! There were even little sparkly sand like pieces that created some interesting effects.

I enjoyed the glass making place so much that I took Ryan back there after the convention was over to make some more glass items. I knew that he would enjoy it too. Ryan decided to create a Chicken for his mom!

I was hoping that there would be some place similar in the Seattle area but it seems like most places don't let you just drop in and work, you have to take scheduled classes, but if you are interested in making your own "stained glass" creations here is a list of some places all over the country: Glass Fusionplaces


Jandy said...

There is place near my home where I go to paint pottery and do the stained glass thing --- I've made many tiles that I'm using to make a table for my sunroom!
You should come and visit and we can go play!
Cousin Janet

Jarna said...

The Tacoma Glass studio is awesome and they let you just drop in and create a blown glass work of art. I've done it twice now, it rocks. Loved your projects too, looks like tons of fun.

Lisa said...

our paint your own pottery place here on the island does glass like this.