WEEK TWO OF MY CRAFT YEAR CHALLENGE  -  GLASS/CERAMIC BIRD FEEDER

Well obviously now that I am a master at drilling holes into glass things, my mind began to wander what other things I could make with my new found skill.  A quick look on the internet and I found these lovely bird feeders made from old tea cups that would compliment my lovely glass flower that I made last week.

I liked the idea of the upside down tea cup with the fat ball hanging from it, so hubby and I visited a local vintage store to find a tea cup trio as I wanted to put a plate on top to protect the feed from the rain.

I drilled holes in all three, grabbed my garden twine and this was my first attempt at a china bird feeder.

It was okay, but it wasn't inspiring me as much as some of the others I had seen online, so I went back to the drawing board to redesign it.  I was inspired by the first picture to have an 'umberella' to protect the feed and also to use cake stand fixings to seperate it all.  I just happened to have redundant cake stand fittings and a nice glass plate already drilled, and this was my second attempt and I like this one much better.  It has a little hook in the cup to hang a fat ball from, the saucer will hold seed and I can't wait to see it in use.

WEEK 1 OF MY CRAFT YEAR CHALLENGE  -  GLASS PLATE FLOWER/GARDEN ORNAMENT

As we are three weeks into January this is not actually week one, but it is the first thing I made this year so I am going to start here.

My inspiration for this project came from trawling the net, these wonderful creations are all a rage in the good old USA.  They are made from recycled glass plates/dishes/vases.

I was really inspired by these and began to scour the net looking for information/tutorials on how to make them and found quite a few.  I particularly liked this tutorial http://empressofdirt.net/makeglassflowers/

After much research I found that although many people glue their plates together, the best way to do them to make sure that they can stand cold winters is to drill and bolt them.  Therefore I needed to learn how to drill glass and ceramics. I did some more research, there are a lot of tutorials out there on how to drill glass.  I needed a diamond drill  bit and promptly sent the other half to the local DIY store for new drill bits.  We then visited the local charity shops for some well priced glass plates/dishes to play with.  I expected to find loads of it, but it was difficult to find suitable coloured pieces of glass, but we got there eventually. We probably bought more than we needed, but I was envisaging breaking loads before I mastered my new skill.

I also got inspiration and help from this person.  His flowers are lovely, he has a real eye for putting them together, well worth a look for your own inspiration.

https://www.facebook.com/glassflowerguy

I messaged him as I was not sure how to finish the back of the flower off to fit onto a pole and he promptly and kindly replied to my request with a picture and information on how to do it, so a big thank you to him.

This is my first attempt at making a glass flower, hope you like it.

WHAT CAN I DO THIS YEAR THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM LAST YEAR, I REALLY NEED A CHALLENGE.

Well it is January, judging by past posts it is time for my yearly post lol.

Jokes set aside I wanted to set myself a challenge this year, I think I am being a bit ambitious, but I would like to try and craft one item a week for the rest of the year.  I see/hear you all sniggering behind your hands, but I am going to try.  If I can't make something one week for whatever reason I will try and blog about an inspiration for the following week.  So please humour me!!!