New hobby ideas?

[shootingstar]

I'd like to learn how to do stained glass someday.

I did take a course that ran several months --a long time ago. It was not about making little wee stained glass suncatchers with small copperfoil-- that's cheating abit and taking short-cuts. It's like doing hand calligraphy with a fountain pen but not learning the real art style of hand calligraphy by painting your steel stip with ink and using human hand for controlling pressure and ink release onto paper.

We learned the classic real way of stained glass making. I did do a major heavy piece-- mine was 3 ft. x 2 ft. at least with heavy real lead channels, soldering and grout to hold stained glass pattern together. It was real lead, because we were required to wear face mask due to lead dust, when we were applying grout in between the lead channels and coloured glass. I loved dealing with different colours, patterns, and cuts of glass.

Unfortunately, I thought my piece was a bit warped in some places because of my beginner's touch in bending and the clamping in the pieces together. I never hung it 'cause so heavy that it would require customized supports...I actually discarded it before I moved to Vancouver. Yup.

But still have photos of the piece, named "Spring Thaw", a lily pad flower in a blue cave pool grotto like setting of water. (Yea, well I was into purple prose at the time. )

That was the good thing about the class..access to so much range of coloured glass..that otherwise would be very expensive to buy individually. Cutting out curved pieces of glass..requires practice, means accidental breakage and glass waste.

Yes, I now can go into churches and truly appreciate stained glass art. My admiration is great for those masters now. It's very noticeable how churches tend to be locked up these days due to vandalism. Can't see the gorgeous stuff up close at times whenever we go on bike trips

[mudmucker]

Oh, I like that headboard. Post pics when you get it finished! I agree about the "finish up projects" vacation. I'm doing the same thing this summer, except today Fastdogs and I are riding in Fenton. It's kind of nice not to have to be anywhere, just pick up and go when you want. I have put a new floor in my bathroom, refinished window sills, shampooed carpets, put up a new ceiling fant, planted some stuff and the list goes on and on.

Late this afternoon I finally finished the headboard I was making. Installing it and leveling it myself was interesting, but I had some good tricks. Well, I guess it looks better than a plain wall. I think I like the look better than a solid headboard for the space it's in. I hesitate to post so soon because I'm not done with the room. It's a little spartan in that part of the room. I intend to add some floating shelves for a more contemporary look, and take away the small table. The shelves will be totally made up as I go so it'll certainly be custom. I'm thinking 2 small glass shelves over a solid wood shelf. I'd like a drawer so I think I'll make my own custom drawer, a simple one as I'm no woodworker, using one of those drawer roller kits. I'll change the lighting but I don't know what it'll be - I'm not there yet.

I used cheap pine. The key is to use a good pre-stain so any blotching of the stain on a wood like pine is reduced. I used one coat of a polyurethane varnish to bring out the luster of the wood but not have it too shiny.

I took the idea from the DIY network here. I didn't like how high it was in the example, so I just adjusted the dimensions to the size of the bed and room. Although, it looks "larger" in the room than what is represented in the photo it seems. I didn't want to stain it dark. As you can see in the photos I have natural woodwork for the window casings and baseboards with wood flooring so I tried to match that. And tried to match the platform bed as well, which it does and you can't see. The 2 vertical slats are wider in the example it seems: Their studs look to be 24" on center were but mine are 16" on center so I obviously made it so I could attach the headboard via the 2 vertical slats into the studs.

I had a bunch of harsh lighting in this first photo, which washes out the wall color. It is a north facing room, so the paint color isn't dark.


I generally have low level lighting in this room, unless I drop an earring.


The overhead light fixture makes the wood a little lighter and bounces reflection. The overhead light fixture is going.



I still have my Pottery Barn duvet cover with the down comforter on the bed. It's been so cool here this summer. My usual summer spread is a light blue and white quilt.



The DIY network instructions said to cut 2 inch returns and put them on the end of the slats (all the ends have 45's) but I changed it to 1 1/2" returns because I didn't want them to be flush with the wall and make a bunch of marks.



I'll post again when I put the shelves and lighting in.

[salsabike]

That headboard is quite nice---simple and elegant.