How to Make Fused Glass Jewelry

Series Summary

The term “fused glass” refers to glass which has been fired in a kiln. The extreme heat creates interesting patterns and colors. The process is not efficient for creating large glass works such as windows or even smaller pieces such as glasses and vases, but has become very popular for contemporary jewelry artists.

In this arts and crafts series of free jewelry making videos, our jewelry artist will demonstrate how to make a fused glass pendant. Cheryl Syminink tells you all of the equipment and materials you need, then takes you step-by-step through the creation of a unique and fascinating piece of handcrafted jewelry. She begins by showing you how to cut and trim the glass, then demonstrates how to shape the glass to your own design. Next, you will fire it in a kiln, cut a groove where you can attach your necklace and before you know it, you've created you own masterpiece!

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Cheryl from Expert Village and I'm going to be teaching you how to make fused glass jewelry today so check it out. Hi my name is Cheryl Syminink and I'm a twenty two year old glass artist from Howl, New Jersey I actually recently started my own business it's called C-Glass Studio, you can find it on MySpace.com/C/studio check it out if you want to see some of my stuff. I started doing glass when I was about eighteen. I started apprenticing for a guy named Tim Dorlin, he's a glass artist around here and he is from Oregon actually. He was introduced to me by a woman named Pakini who was one of my old girl scout leaders. When I started apprenticing I learned how to do fused glass, stained glass, mosaics, glass painting and glass etching which is super cool. I'm going to show you guys how to make a fused glass necklace today actually so check it out over here this is some dicroick glass. It's made by NASA it was first made by NASA and then some glass artists discovered it and realized you can fuse it together with another piece glass if actually two reasons a glass need to be in cold fission so I'll explain that later. But I put a piece of glass on top, stick it in a kiln, fire it and it comes out a real cool piece of jewelry that you get to wire up and wear it all the time like i do."