Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Aquarium Gems and Quilting

I bought aquarium gems nearly a decade ago for a LARP I played, which later was used for my betta tanks.  Well... I just couldn't bring myself to get rid of them.  Little gems of glass could be used for so many things, right?

Well, I finally got a new use out of some!!!  Sadly, I didn't get the before pictures, but they were standard flat marble aquarium gems.

From plain aquarium gems to...





I crackled the gems and then attached them to ring bases.  I think they turned out really well!   :-)

I'm also working on a scrap block quilt.  I plan on making one for my son and one for my daughter.  The idea is to only really use scrap cloth from projects I made in the past and possibly from clothes that are no longer in use (like maternity stuff dating back to the 1990s and severely outdated and not the cute stuff they have now... but has nice material).  The idea is that I can pinpoint what each block was originally from (ie. "This is from a cloak I made" or "This is from a shirt I made and sold off").  I've never made a quilt before, so if anyone has any websites that they can refer to an uber-beginner (me), please post the address in the comments area of this post.  I'd really appreciate it!

4 comments:

dollface said...

hi, the rings are really cute! how did you get the effect without smashing the glass?

Jenni said...

Such a quick and flashy ring!
Jenni
EOD

MankyCat said...

I heated the glass up till VERY hot and then quickly immersed them into ice cold water. Cracked on the inside, solid on the outside. A couple didn't survive, but I have plans for those. :-)

Jean said...

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/free-patterns.html
Here is a great site to go for free patterns... she uses old shirts all the time to make her quilts. Check out the scrappy ones... you will find that some aren't all that hard to do!
Good luck! Jean C.