The Moth

I wanted to share with you my most current project, the moth. I love searching for unique ideas that aren't usually produced with glass. Believe me, I have many ideas that float around in my head about what to make! But as a single mom and I have a full time job, working on glass isn't a priority for me; it used to be.

A little bit about me and how I got into stained glass goes a long ways away. I grew up in a Catholic family and every Sunday while at church I was mesmerized by the stained glass windows. I loved the detail, the colors, and how it created this whole new ambience in the church. Unfortunately, this daydreaming voided out what the priest was teaching, as I was in my own little world staring at these beautiful windows. Fast forward about 10 years later stained glass was thrown in my face!

It was in 2005 and I just separated from the Air Force that I came across an ad to learn how to make stained glass windows. It was a beginners class that was held about 30 miles away in a small town called Isleton in northern California. It was ran by this cute married couple who created amazing works of art; like I was blown away at what they did. Needless to say, they taught me so much and provided such a warm inviting experience that stained glass has become a passion of mine.

I have done so many windows, suncatchers, even made a wedding box; I am still learning the tricks of the trade. I have been working with glass for 15 years. I do know how to do both methods, leaded and foiled, but I am now preferring to use lead. My biggest accomplishment was building two stained glass windows for a church in Vacaville, CA. The angel pictures on my blog in the top part is one of those windows. That window took my breath away; she is by far my most favorite window that I have ever created. See when you build large windows, you don't know what it's going to look like until the light shines through it. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. To have that church select me was humbling; I cried because they chose me when they could've easily picked someone else.

So my current project: The Moth. I am an avid searcher on Pinterest. I love that site; I am always looking for idea whether its food, furniture, glass art, mosaics, you name it, I'm there! I came across this month that I literally thought was stained glass. Upon further inspection, nope... this moth is that beautiful on it's own.

Look at this moth! It looks like stained glass to me! I know, I can see stained glass ideas in many things! I'll be honest with you, if this thing landed on me, as beautiful as it is, I would totally freak out. Bugs are cool to look at, not have crawl on you... that's a wrap!

My initial idea was that I wanted to create something that was different for my house, so I panned through Pinterest and came across this picture. My plan was to make this moth huge so I could hang it on the wall in living room. If anything, that type of art would be a talking point. But as much as that project would be cool, the idea of not being able to see the colors shining through it would be a huge waste of time. I just might make a mosaic piece instead ( who knows, I just might make something for my living room and share the process with you!)

So I grabbed my pencil and paper and began to draw it out. I usually always draw out my own patterns. So just to fair warn you, I am still working on this project, so you're going to have to wait for me to post the outcome. In this picture, I have a light box; if you're ever thinking of getting into stained glass I can't enforce getting a light box; it's been a life saver! They are super easy to build! So once I have my pattern, I make sure I have a second copy. Since I am lazy, I use my light box to trace the pattern onto a second sheet. One is used for tracing on the glass, the other is for the cut out pieces of glass to be laid on the pattern.

So now that I have my pattern, I number the pieces. This helps me know where each piece goes and allows me to know which piece needs to be reshaped to size to match the pattern. ALWAYS CUT YOUR PIECES TO MATCH YOUR PATTERN!! I had to learn this the hard way. Once it's put together, yea, taking these apart isn't fun. Plus, I am super critical of my work; but that's just me.

Now comes the hardest part: picking out the colored glass. Since this is an actual insect and not someone else's work, I stuck with the same colors and made the design as close as I can to the picture of the moth. If this was someone else's design, I would have change this design, don't quote me, but I think you have to change a design by at least 20%. Plagiarism is no joke in the real world! If you plan on keeping a design the same, it's wise to ask the artist for a written consent. I never sell a project or solicit a project that is someone else's work or logo. I have made windows that are those things upon request, but I would never show up to a craft fair or advertise on a website claiming the rights to something I know damn well I didn't create. It actually pisses me off when people do this. Artists work hard.

So this is where I am at. I have the left wing almost fully cut out. The wings are done in a clear glass that have white hues through it, the body is a combination of orange/red glass, black, and a royal blue. On the back side of the black glass it's iridized; meaning it looks like it has rainbow colors on it, almost like oil from a car on the ground once the rain hits it. So the eyes and all the small circles down the back will have that iridized look to it. I haven't completely thought through the legs or the antenna yet; I am waiting to see what this looks like once it's done; who knows, it might not need it.

This piece has 77 pieces in total. I do this to myself all the time, I love detail!! So far I have to recut about 10 pieces and let me tell you, cutting out black glass is hard!! I do have a Taurus III saw; I can simply trace the piece that I need, cut it out, glue it down on the glass, then cut it out with my saw. Yes, it's time consuming, but it gets the job done better then having to hand cut everything!

I will update this pose once it's done. If you have any questions on my procedure of doing stained glass, let me know, I am happy to share my knowledge!

Here are some of my other projects that I have created over the years. You can also check out my business Facebook page: Thompson's Glass Creations

The Things We Do For Our Kids

I know I am not the only mom out there who would do anything for her kids; I would think any loving mother would feel the same. But where do you draw the line on that? I want my kids to be independent, self secure, and proud of who they are. To me there is nothing more important than to be able to stand out and have the confidence in yourself as soon as you wake up; seriously, Halloween should be no different!! Like what I did there? Trying to give you wisdom and be all serious about life (which I am always striving to instill these qualities in my kids, even myself on some days), but Halloween is kind of on those same lines.

Every year around July, yes July, I am thinking about Halloween. I love Halloween and I always want to be elaborate with my costumes and my decorations. I can't stand buying costumes and then showing up somewhere and having someone else be dressed up the exact same way. Man, it irritates me!! I know many people can't be crafty, but we can always take some time to think about creating something original or try our best to copy something we found cool on Pinterest!

I think this was back in 2011; this is by far my most memorable Halloween ever with my kids! This is the year when Despicable Me 2 came out; you know when the purple Minions came into play? I made these costumes out of foam and random fabrics. All these kids had to do was slip this over their heads and bam, done! We were living in California at the time, so the weather was perfect for the kids to run to each door yelling Trick or Treat!! Everyone gave them so many compliments; which again, enhances their confidence!

As a mother of daughters, I can assure you the "P" word was never used in my house; we never called our girls Princess. Yet, there was one year where my 6 year old wanted to be one, and my then 8 year old wanted to be the evil witch. Just like the title of this post; the things we do for our children.. oh the stories I could tell you.. sigh. So me, being the sucka I am for my kids, was like which princess would you like to be? Glenda the Good Witch.

So back to the drawing board, how to do I make such an outfit? I came across an article on how to make tutu's. My thought was instead of making it short, why not leave it longer? (You can go to my Pinterest page and see how to make a tutu in my Halloween board: https://www.pinterest.com/glassartistamy/) So I purchased a mannequin body for $30 and proceeded to cut the tutu lace in strips (from my daughter's belly button to the floor) and tied them to a longer length that could easily be tied around my daughter's waist once the skirt was complete.

To help give the skirt a fuller look, I simply cut random strips into shorter pieces. I really wish you guys could've seen how beautiful my daughter looked in this skirt; her facial expression was priceless! She twirled around the room in that skirt!

For the top portion of this costume, I went to Kohl's and bought a long sleeved shirt; one in light pink, the other in black for the "evil witch"! I basically did the same thing for my other daughter's witch costume; I used black and purple. For the tuling over the shoulders, I took two long pieces of tuling and tied little knots at the ends, cut a small slit in the shirt where her shoulder blades would be and stuck them in. I hand sewed the shoulder tulling in place. I used a poster board for her crown and hot glued on rhinestones to accessorize her outfit. She was a princess after all!

For the evil witch, I did just about the same thing as I did for the Glenda costume, but I added extra lengths for a more dramatic look around her shoulders. I found a witch hat that had a veil material hanging from it and I made my own broach of the skull for effects. I tried my best to paint her face like a ghoul.

Yes, my older daughter won 1st place for ORIGINALITY at her school! The look on her face just says it all! Of course, our dog Georgia got in the mix too; why can't our dog look beautiful too!

About to head out for some trick or treat fun!

Making memories is where it's at for me a mom! My kids will never forget the time and effort I put into their costumes! My baby unfortunately didn't win in her Halloween costume contest; yea it was a bummer. But she looked beautiful!!

Thanks for checking out my post! If you have any questions, please let me know!

DIY Bathroom I did on my own

Ok I am just going to be straight up, I am not a contractor, a carpenter, or even someone who remotely remodel's homes for a living; I simply have ambition to tackle any home project. The way I go about huge projects (and I can assure you this isn't always the smartest moto) is try and tackle it yourself and if you screw it up, then call the in the professionals! Again, probably not the best way of going about projects, but I know what my limits are (i.e. electrical, plumbing, concrete laying etc.) and I won't attempt anything that would harm myself or make matters worse.

So in 2018 I bought my first house on my own; I can't even break it down how awesome that felt to accomplish this on my own! This house was perfect for my family and I, except the main bathroom was hideous. My kids and I are all tall and this bathroom was clearly created for individuals 5 feet and shorter. This is a situation when you have a daughter who is 6'2"; the vanity went up to her mid thigh.. seriously, we both looked at each other and were like "um.. yea this isn't gonna work".

This was the bathroom right when we first moved in, hence the boxes.

Do you see that tile behind the toilet? I know you can't really tell in this picture, but that tile had a hint of brown in it, the bath tub area is a bright white tile. So yes, this tile just irritated me; it had to go!

If you look closely, you can see the bright white tile in the shower area.

So I took everything out all the way to the studs. The reason why I did this was to just start over and put in new dry wall. That floor was the worst part about this whole redo; the flooring was a peel and stick linoleum tiles and the glue was ridiculous to get off. I scrapped that floor for days trying to get ever morsel off so I would have a level floor. I knew I wanted to lay down a tile floor, but I wasn't sure what I wanted the finished bathroom to look like. This is where my imagination came into play.

Yes this was my sketch! My dad looked at me like I was crazy; he was not excited about my plan at all! So the image I had in my head was to tile behind the mirror up the wall and fill in the bottom half of the walls with wainscoting. I did this for two reasons: 1) I am not a drywaller; to make those seams on that wall perfect was something I'm not familiar with. All I know is the seams have to be close where it's bolted to the studs, then taped off, then puttied, then smoothed out. Sounds easy right? Ha ha ha.. yea, to me it's like trying to tint your car windows yourself; you'd see the lines where I got pissed! And I don't want evidence on my walls! 2) I think wainscoting looks nice in bathrooms. Those are my reason's and I am sticking to it!

If you've never put in a concrete sub flooring, you're in for a real treat! Make sure your drill is powerful, you've got good knee pads, and lots of water to keep hydrated as you plug in like 500 screws in floor. Good times... sigh.

You can see my drywall skills here; this is obviously before it's taped off. If you don't have the Dremel multi tool, you need to get on it! Seriously, that tool is badass! It cuts drywall like butter. I was able to make some amazing cuts like around that window ledge.

Always pre-lay out your tiles before gluing them down. This is what I did so I know exactly what cuts to make. That white lid is the hole in the floor where the toilet goes; I am super proud of myself for cutting that out like a champ! If you've read my profile you'd know I am a stained glass artist and I love doing mosaics. I have many tools when it comes to creating art, so my tile saw was pretty handy for this project!

Not the best camera quality, but you get the idea of what is going on here! I tiled the wall behind the mirror to the ceiling and added a molding strip on the sides to frame it in. One tip I would recommend it to tile the whole thing. You can kinda tell in this picture, but my tile work slowly became crooked, I am not happy about it, but then again, didn't realize this until the mirror was installed. Ugh..

This is basically the finished product! I painted a fresh coat of white paint on the wainscoting (which you can clearly see that I needed to do). If you did notice the bolts on the drawers of the vanity, well there's a story on that too. Yes, I am diming out all my flaws. I bought the top separate from the bottom. The bottom vanity part is from IKEA; I will NEVER buy a vanity from IKEA again. Don't get me wrong, I love that store, but when you are making an improvement in your home you want products that are sturdy and built right. This vanity was a pain in the ass to keep together! I bought the vanity top separate because I didn't want a double sink, and that's all that came with this vanity, so I only purchased the bottom half. Lets be serious, there's 3 females living in my home and we need the space. So when purchasing two separate items that were not meant to be together, well I created a situation. I will be replacing this vanity soon and plan on dropping the $1200 for the one I really want that comes in one whole piece.

This whole renovation took me two months to complete; but again, I was mainly doing this by myself. My dad was my hero through this whole process and quite frankly, I couldn't of done this without him. Between the laughs, the heavy lifting, beer breaks, the cussing.. yea, he was my rock! You're better off having a rock assisting you as well!