Happy weekend, everyone. It's Saturday and I'm really looking forward to having the day off tomorrow - although I still need to work on organizing all the boxes at home. The Building Department was here this week with the contractor, but I've no idea if anything was decided on the fate of our lofts. There is hardly anything left up there, so just a bit more work and they're empty - just hope for us that we can leave the structure as is and don't have to demolish everything.
Still making slow progress getting everything cleared away. I actually managed to clear out about 15 sq. feet of space yesterday in the gallery, and have been working to clear the tables in the studio. We now have 2 light tables open & functioning. The torch table is just about ready for use too. So, classes have been postponed again, but we'll definately be able to start new ones the first of next month (May). Be sure to check the calendar. If there's a class or technique you're interested in, please just send me an email to let me know.
We brought down some boxes of clear and colored cullet from the loft, and it's surprising all the uses people have been coming up with - from table decorations to paperweights to casting to mosaics to stained glass. I even have one customer who bought pounds of blue "chunks" to put into her garden fountain to quiet it a bit and add sparkle. I've always used it, broken into small chunks, as flower centers or accents (lots of sparkle!) in stained glass. Now, I'm toying with the idea of testing it for casting into some of the Colour de Verre molds - could be very interesting. If I can make beads from scrap glass, why can't I cast tiles with this?
As soon as we sell the rest of the equipment that taking up valuable floor space, we'll start offering more fusing classes. I'm anxious to get out the mini glory hole to blow glass again. It's perfect for making shards (for use in fusing or bead making) or colored/patterned canes, or even small paperweights. I want to do some for painting on glass too - why can't there be more than 24 hours in a day????
With Spring here, we're not going to have cool weather much longer, so I really want to get started, especially since I'm getting so tired of all the cleaning and reorganizing.
Off to eat lunch now, the store is quiet and I'm going to take advantage.
More later.