Lacey & Erica go see My Chemical Romance in concert... twice!!!

 

My Chemical Romance announced a reunion tour back in 2019. ❤ The closest they'd come to Oklahoma was Dallas, TX. Only a short drive away! Lacey and I knew we had to go. Lacey waited by her laptop hours before tickets went on sale in hopes of getting a pair... and we did!! They were the worst overpriced seats; the nosebleed section of the gigantic arena, BUT we got tickets!!! 😁 Then the concert was postponed in 2020... and again 2021. I was afraid that they'd just cancel and refund everyone. But then they announced the tour will be starting in 2022 with new dates. And guess what?? One of the newly added dates, the first date of the North American tour actually, would be in Oklahoma City at the Paycom arena. Oh boy were we excited!!! So excited that I bought us matching shirts and painted the band's logo on the back. ❤❤❤❤ Lacey once again waited hours by her laptop, counting down the minutes until tickets went on sale. She got us really good seats at a reasonable price. YAY! It was official, time to grab our eye liner because we'd be seeing our favorite emo band in concert twice!

The opening band at the OKC concert was Dilly Dally, a terrible band that no one liked. Lacey said they were okay but she is just very generous. It was a group of women who screamed sounds and pretended they knew how to play their instruments. The second act was Coheed and Cambria. Wes loves them and was jealous I'd be getting to see them. I vaguely remembered hearing them on the radio in the mid-2000s but didn't know any of their songs. Turns out, they're amazing!! 🎸The lead singer had a ton of rad guitar solos. They also had a spinning thing on the drum set that projected lasers!

After a VERY long wait accompanied by what sounded like a low-flying helicopter, but was supposed to be "the swarm", My Chemical Romance finally came on. 🎤They sounded exactly as I remembered from our college emo days. They were loud, manic, and passionate. I have never felt such a sense of community at a concert before. I know music speaks to a lot of people but I, personally, have never really felt a deep visiceral connection to a set of lyrics. Well, that changed at the concert. I felt all the feels! I truly felt a sense of oneness as we all sang along. 🎶 It was so extremely powerful hearing an entire arena singing "we'll carry on," and declaring that we are "awake and unafraid." 💀 It was definitely an experience I will never forget. Their set was mostly songs from the Danger Days album, which was a little odd since most of the hits were off of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and The Black Parade. It was their first show so the sound could have been better but I didn't notice until Lacey & I were talking about it on the way home. If I had one complaint, it would be that the lead singer relied too much on the distortion machine, but he did tell us that he was having vocal problems that evening.

A month later, Lacey and I were in the American Airlines arena in Dallas, TX for show number two. We didn't get any merchandise at the OKC show because the line was miles long and the t-shirt designs frankly weren't that cool. 😕 We decided that we should buy something from the Dallas concert since we've been to two shows (what kind of fans would we be without t-shirts?) We decided to skip the opening bands to get dinner from the concession stands and wait it out in the extremely long merch line. I wanted a shirt with the tour dates on it but the only design I liked didn't have tour dates. 😑 The Paycom arena had some neat balloon and chalk art for the band (that we sadly didn't see until on Instagram the next day) so we decided to walk around the American Airlines arena in search of art. There was none. We made it back to our seats to see the last few songs of the second act, Midtown. They were decent. 

My Chemical Romance came on and played a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SHOW than the one we saw in Oklahoma City. They played almost twice as many songs and mostly from the Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and The Black Parade albums. The set list seemed to have an order to it. It felt like they were testing out songs to play at the OKC show and were much more refined, and less chaotic this time around. They sounded 100x times better! I guess they had plenty of practice between August 20th and September 28th. The best part was that the lead singer let go of his reliance on the distortion machine. The tradeoff was that this concert felt more robotic and as if the band was at work. The OKC show felt more intimate because they'd stop every few songs and talk to us or the lead singer would tell a personal story. The Dallas show was all business, song after song with no breaks. It didn't have the same energy or sense of community as the OKC show did. I still felt moved as we all sung along but it was a different vibe. It was so strange to see the same band play two entirely different shows on the same tour, and only one month apart. I'm not sure which experience I enjoyed more. Now that Lacey and I have seen AFI and My Chemical Romance, we just need to see The Used and we'll have the trifecta of emo under our belts.

Lacey & Erica make office memo holders

... one of mine is going to the office, the others will become part of my craft show display.

Its almost been twenty years since our college emo phase; 2019 is a good time to recreate that look. I wish I had an old college picture for comparison but I didn't have digital camera back then. 

Lacey & I have known each other since middle school but I think we really became friends when we were roommates freshman year of college. We were both weird, unpopular and invisible, which sounds pretty unpleasant but it actually was perfect timing because she introduced me to emo music, where all of our heroes sung about being weird, unpopular and invisible.  We had the best times singing along to My Chemical Romance, The Used, AFI and Good Charlotte. I haven't kept up with those bands' music but I was feeling nostalgic one day at work and clicked on one of my older Pandora stations (appropriately named Emo Songs). A new Good Charlotte song came on and then this conversation happened.

So here we are... in 2019, wearing heavy black eye liner and glitter, listening to a CD, drinking vodsprittles and DIY'ing stuff. Just like back in the good old days.  BTW, vodsprittles are a cocktail made with vodka, Sprite and Skittles. 

DIY office memo holders-

Supplies needed: plastic animal figures, electric drill (not pictured because I don't own one; we borrowed Lacey's roommate's), dowel rods, alligator clips, craft glue, spray paint

1. Drill a hole into the back of each plastic animal that is the size of the dowel rod

2. Glue an alligator clip to the top of each dowel rod. Let dry.
**It probably isn't necessary, but Lacey brought a handheld pencil sharpener and we sharpened both ends of the dowel rods so they'd fit easier into the alligator clips and animals.

3. Glue the dowel rod (with alligator clip attached) into each animal's back. Let dry.

4. Spray paint after the glue has dried. 

Not the best pictures because we spray painted out on the patio at like 9pm with only a flashlight for light.

And that's it. Super simple. Super cute. No one wants to do a complicated craft while having cocktails on a weeknight. LOL 😜

Erica & Lacey relive our emo days.

AFI!! All of the pictures on this blog post are of AFI since I really didn't care for the two opening bands.

Back in 2004, my best friend, Lacey, and I bonded over emo music and dreamed of dating guys who wore eyeliner. We weren't exactly part of the emo crowd--we weren't edgy enough--but, oh, how we loved to watch from the sidelines. I've gotten less and less edgy in my old age but Lacey is still hip enough to keep up with the music scene. So when she found out that the band, AFI (one of our favorites a decade ago), was coming to town and invited me to go with her, I said, "Sure, why not?" As soon as we got to the concert venue, I discovered exactly why not... I am old. LOL Very, very, old.

AFI at 10:10...can you believe that?!? Who even stays up that late anymore? Apparently the young'ens do. 

At age 32, Lacey & I were among the oldest in attendance. Do you remember hearing those "you know you're old if..." jokes as a kid? Well, they are actually pretty true. Here are a few you can make fun of us for...
     * Our first concern was that AFI wasn't starting their set until 10:10pm! That is entirely past my bedtime. And if they didn't start until that late, lord only knows what time we'll actually make it home! We were genuinely worried that we might fall asleep before we could watch the band we came to see. It wasn't looking good as I started yawning around 9:30pm. The band must have somehow sensed our concern and actually came on stage a little early (at 10pm). Thank goodness!
     * The style of dress from the early 1990s is making a comeback and we actually remembered dressing that way as a kid. Remember wearing long t-shirts with short denim shorts and choker necklaces? That's a thing again. We realized that instead of having "flashback 1980s day" for school fundraisers, the young'ens nowadays are having "flashback 1990s-dress day".
     * We actually found ourselves complaining about the noise (do the speakers need to be that loud?...we couldn't hear each other talk.), strobe lights (too blinding) and temperature (too hot, too many sweaty bodies, yuck) of the concert venue.
     * But we did fully appreciate the cleanness of the public restrooms.

How did Davey Havok manage wear a jacket in this stuffy room?

Besides those few chuckle worthy complaints, the concert overall was rather enjoyable. I can say that I still like angsty rock music after I initially fell in love with it almost fifteen years ago. The first opening band was Citizen (from Ohio... that's how they kept referring to themselves as, "We're Citizen from Ohio"... there must be a lot of bands named Citizen from various states). After every song, they would stop and thank us for listening to them. It was a nice gesture at first, but then it felt overly appreciative and almost desperate. Lacey suggested that maybe they get booed off stage a lot so they were very happy that we were still a captive audience. Another thing that happens when you get old... you turn into a cynical curmudgeon. Hahaha!

During the set change, the concert venue played a compilation of Outkast's greatest hits over the loudspeaker. We enjoyed the throwback tracks but wondered if anyone else in attendance ever even heard of Outkast. I seemed to be the only one singing along to Hey Ya! 

Trying out our best "we're badass emo girl" faces. Please note our back shirts and eye make up. We are so hard core!

The second band to play was Circa Survive. They were a crowd favorite but Lacey & I had never heard of them *insert "you know you're old if joke" here* I thought the lead singer's use of auto-tune made him sound like Ozzy Osbourne sucking from a helium balloon. It was during their performance that we started to complain about the lighting. The strobe lights were very impressive but maybe overly so. I turned to Lacey and told her I couldn't look at that stage because the lights were blinding me. Maybe I needed to bring in my sunglasses.

                     I would have gotten pictures of the entire band but only the lead singer was up close and personal. 

Lastly, was AFI... the awesome emo rockers that we stayed up so late to see. They did not disappoint! At first we were worried that we wouldn't recognize their songs because they have released a lot of new music since we first listened to them. But, they played mostly their old songs from the Sing the Sorrow and December Underground albums (the ones that Lacey & I knew by heart). Besides playing our favorite songs, the best thing about their performance was that each member of the band stood on a riser so us short kids could view them, too. (^_^) Although I was tired and my legs ached from standing all night, I jumped up & down and scream-sung the songs along with the rest of the crowd. We left our old lady complaining behind and felt young again for an hour. I think that's the great thing about music; its something you can just immerse yourself in and forget about your worries for a while. But then my ears rang the entire way home. Ugh... old age. LOL

Last AFI picture.

Erica & Lacey Learn Paper Quilling

What is paper quilling, you ask? And why would Lacey and I go to a class to learn it?
       Paper quilling is an art form where you roll thin strips of paper into coils & scrolls and then position the rolled paper pieces to form patterns, shapes and designs. The art is traceable to the 15th century and became popular in the 18th century. It was a fashionable hobby for the young women at the time. Lacey & I are fashionable young women, so we naturally gravitated toward taking a class on the art form. (Note: I actually am neither young nor fashionable, but I do love art and trying new things. The classes were free at the Metropolitan Library and I also knew the teacher.)

The top right snowflake pendant is a piece that our teacher made.

At a craft show last November, my booth was next to an artist who sold beautiful pendants and ornaments ... made from paper!! I was blown away by the fact that everything in her booth was made from paper and that she handmade each piece. The artist was Toni Swayze. She has been making paper art for over a decade and is a member of both the North American Quilling Guild and the Quilling Guild based in the United Kingdom. We talked throughout the day and she informed me that she teaches for the Metropolitan Library System. We exchanged contact information and she promised to enroll me in her next class.

Fast forward a few months and Lacey & I find ourselves in Paper Quilling for Beginners. Toni started class with a brief history lesson and showed us some examples of her finished artwork. We then learned about our quilling tools. Our main tool was a metal pick with a slot across the head. The object was to slide the end of a strip of paper into the slot and coil the paper into a small tight spiral. We made several of these spirals for practice. Once we got the hang of it, we moved onto other rolled shapes. Toni provided us with a chart of basic shapes. We made tear drops, squares and hearts. After we finished making all the simple shapes, our "assignment" was to design a flower. The pattern was a little hard to follow so I made my own flowers. Since we mastered the basic techniques in the beginners class, Toni invited us back for her advanced class a week later.

Mine are the two flowers on the bottom left and Lacey's is the one to the right. She was much better a following the flower pattern.

There were five students in the beginners' class. Only three of us returned for the advanced class. The advanced class was certainly advanced. We were all given a new quilling chart with much more complicated patterns. I don't think my technique would have granted me access to the advanced class but I knew the teacher (yay for connections, right?) and Lacey was an expert quiller. The shapes we made in the advanced class used multiple strips of paper. My favorite were the beehive (below, purple) and royal flower (below, yellow). For these two shapes, we started by rolling a large tear drop shape. We then rolled another strip of paper into small spirals and then put the spiraled paper into the large tear drop.

Mine's on the left and Lacey's is on the right.

Since this was the advanced class, Toni assumed everyone was familiar with the techniques and we moved through the chart fairly quickly. I would have preferred a more thorough demonstration, as I needed some one-on-one assistance on a few of the shapes. Since it was a small class, we finished a little early and Toni was able to spend some time working at mine and Lacey's table toward the end of class. I really struggled with the Malaysian shape, which is a spiraled tear drop curled into another tear drop. Lacey's is the perfect blue one in the picture above. My first attempt was awful so Toni gave me more paper for a second attempt. Sadly, it did not turn out much better. LOL She also showed us examples of her work that incorporated the shapes we were learning. That woman makes some amazing flowers and butterflies!

I enjoyed paper quilling and I think it was fun to learn but I do not believe I will be adding it to my collection of hobbies. It proved to be a very involved and time consuming task. It took me forever to finish the simple projects we made in class (I can't imagine how long it takes for more complicated designs!) The advanced patterns demanded too much precision. After making a handful of coils and scrolls--and most of them oddly misshapen-- the task became less fun and more tedious. I just do not have enough patience for it. Which is why I am glad people like Toni go to craft shows... if I ever need a beautiful paper pendant, I know who to buy from!

Toni generously provided us each supplies and instructions for a project to complete at home. 

Erica & Lacey go to the Harry Potter Festival

About a month ago, a couple blocks of Western Avenue were transformed into the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The Harry Potter Festival was a free outdoor event for all ages. Thank goodness it was for all ages because I didn't want to be the oldest person in attendance who wasn't a parent or grandparent! LOL

My absolute favorite part was all of the costumes. Look how cute doggie Dobby is!!!

The event was advertised pretty heavily on social media and the turnout was far greater than anyone could have expected (or planned for). Being a local vendor, I think that the magnitude of people who showed up was great! It's always so rewarding and awesome to see your event fill up with shoppers. Every vendor wants to sell out of their merchandise and that is exactly what happened at the Harry Potter Festival. I felt so happy and proud of the vendors there. But many of the other patrons did not feel as I did. As soon as the event started, rants and complaints were posted all over the event's Facebook page. Everyone was so extremely upset with how crowded it was. I agree that the event quickly outgrew its venue, the lines were long and the streets were so crowded that you felt claustrophobic. But, none of that made me angry (and I usually HATE crowds and lines). I anticipated a large turnout so I wasn't upset when I saw over 5,000 people meandering around the streets and, as a pleasant surprise, the lines that Lacey & I waited in moved fairly quickly.

Also, it was a free festival...festivals are always crowded to begin with and throw the word 'free' on top of that and yeah, of course there's going to be a huge turnout!! And honestly, I didn't think it was that crowded once you compared it to other festivals. The Chinese New Year Festival that Wes & I went to in Dallas earlier this year was just as crowded and everyone loved it. El Rastro (open air flea market) in Spain is three times more crowded but it's still one of the most popular Sunday afternoon shopping excursions. If you've ever tried to get on the subway in rush hour, you probably know what crowded truly means... and the Harry Potter Festival wasn't even half as bad. So the haters need to shut their pie holes!

One complaint I do have is the damn hot weather. It was 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of October. Yuck! We walked from my apartment (about a 1.2 mile trek) and were instantly exhausted as soon as we got there. Gawd, Lacey, we are old! Haha. Anyway, the festival was in full swing when we arrived. At first the crowds were a little overwhelming but we were able to maneuver along the sidewalks. If you wanted to get in a photo opp (they had staged scenes and props everywhere) or to participate in an event or purchase something from a vendor or off a food truck, you had to stand in line. If you were just a spectator, you could move freely along the street. I, of course, wanted to do & experience everything but Lacey was the smart one who suggested that we just walk along the sidewalk and view all the action from a distance. We saw so many fun costumes (I was a little shocked at how many Slytherins there were... I expected most of the people would dress as Gryffindors) with all our walking around. I think we had a better experience just walking around and taking in the sights than we would have had if we stood in line to actually do the activities.   

The festival was sectioned into four parts to represent the four houses of Hogwarts. Each section had its own array of events to participate in. Gryffindor had a Quidditch tournament, sorting hat and other kid's activities. Syltherin had a photo opp in the Azkaban Prison with actors dressed as Death Eaters and Dementors. Hufflepuff is where all of the food trucks were. Ravenclaw was where all of the vendors' tents were. We poked our heads in into each vendor tent and was even able to get into the air conditioned indoor shop with no trouble. Even though we didn't stand in line to use any of the photo props and/or scenes, I was still able to take plenty of pictures from a distance (as you can see from this blog). 

One thing we actually did (instead of just watching) was participate in the arts & crafts booth. There were two tables. At one, we made quills, which were feathers attached to straws. We dipped the feather in glue and decorated it with glitter. The other make & take we did was the golden snitch. This seriously was the most efficient arts & crafts booth I have ever seen.  It was an assembly line of volunteers; one would cut the yarn, another would string a Christmas ornament onto the cut yarn and then the last would drill holes into each side of the ornament and drop the finished product into a large pot. By the time we got up to the table, there was a large pot filled with ornaments we could choose from. After picking one, we scooted down to the next station where a volunteer filled the drilled holes with hot glue. Then she moved us down to the next station where another volunteer was ready to hand us two feathers to stick into the hot glue. We were done in less than a minute. And that is how you keep a line moving!

The last thing we did was visit Honeydukes (the candy shop). The 42nd Street Candy Company did a knock out job transforming their store into Honeydukes. The window displays were so adorable and they had wizarding themed candies and decorations throughout the store. The line for Honeydukes winded all the way down the street but it, too, moved very quickly. The shop was arranged like a little maze where everyone had to walk single file and move through the entire store to get to the check out line. That way you were able to see everything and not have to worry about people cutting in line. I bought two candy sticks (or 'wands' if you want to be festive) and a stick of caramel. 

I think the organizers and vendors did an amazing job. I appreciate all the effort that went into creating an event like this. I was able to see all of its attractions despite the crowds. Lacey & I were able to participate in all of the activities that interested us and all in all, we both really enjoyed the festival.  

Lacey takes Erica to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art

Awesome BFF necklaces from Kelsey's Patch on Etsy, our delicious lunch at Blackbird Gastro Pub, then the art museum!

I had a four-day weekend over the Labor Day holiday. \(^_^)/ On my Friday off, I revisited my old stomping grounds... The University of Oklahoma. I graduated in December of 2007 and haven't really been back much to visit. The campus has received a complete face lift --OMG new buildings everywhere-- and Campus Corner is almost unrecognizable. (All of my favorite bars are gone!) Anyway, Lacey is finishing up her graduate studies in art history and also interning at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art. I went to the art museum once as a student but this time I would be going with a museum employee who knew all the best exhibits and could give me detailed information on the collections. My own personal tour guide; I was pumped!

I honestly don't know who that is in the photograph. I took the picture for the puppies.

We started on the top floor, which housed the Ellen and Richard L. Sandor Photography Gallery. The exhibition was Visage: Photography from the Permanent Collection. This was the current showcase at the museum. The exhibit entailed numerous black and white photographs of interesting and/or famous individuals. There were a few photographs of Igor Stravinsky. There included one that he sat for professionally and then a few candid of him composing & conducting. I have a CD of his symphonies; I used to play it as background noise when I studied so I thought getting to see photographs of him at work was pretty neat. Also pretty neat was a photograph of David Phelps (below). He sculpted the Pastoral Dreamer, which is my absolute favorite piece of art on campus. Lacey & I used to walk around campus for exercise and we always made a point to visit Carl (the name I gave to the Pastoral Dreamer). Then when friends & family came to visit, I always took them to see Carl. Today, I got to see Carl's dad. LOL

(Sorry guys, I can't undo this goddamn highlighting. It always does this to me when I copy & paste, which is what I did to get the link to the exhibit.)

The next floor housed the Art of the Americas and the Eugene B. Adkins Collection. It was mostly Native American art. Many paintings, clay vases and tribal jewelry. My interests don't really get piqued by Native American art but it was still an interesting collection. And a very large collection. Lacey noticed it was already 4:30pm. The museum closes at 5pm and we still had 2 floors to go! I was determined to see the entire museum because I didn't know when I would have another day off to return. 

This painting came the year I visited the museum as a student. I remember because I received a poster replica which I hung on my wall for several years.

We had to breeze through the first floor and basement area. I would rather have taken my time but that's what I did on the second & third floors to get us in this mess. I'm sure Lacey was glad I didn't have time to ask her too many questions. Haha! The first floor was my favorite. It housed the Asian and European art collections. The Asian Art collection is getting rotated out because the museum has more pieces in storage and it is also receiving a donation. Part of Lacey's job is to determine which artists are already represented by the museum so the curator knows what to accept from the donation. She's also been researching contemporary Chinese artists. So much more fun than my job.

Also on the first floor was the James T. Bialac Collection. Mr. Bialac gifted his collection of over 4,000 pieces of indigenous art to the museum. I know I mentioned earlier that I didn't find Native American art very sexy but this collection was different. The pieces were colorful and vibrant. There was a piece that looked like an oil painting but was really constructed from yarn. There were also the pieces above, which were constructed from wood and beads. 

The last part of the first floor was the sculptures. Lacey filled me in on which sculptures get rotated in and out of the museum (The Mustang does quite frequently) and which ones were going back into storage. She has the coolest job as an intern. She works directly under the curator and is the first to see all the new pieces that come in. She said she watched as the curator unwrapped a vase that was donated by Mr. Bialac. She performs various tasks for the curator, such as drafting the descriptive note cards that accompany each piece of art, so her boss can focus primarily on curating.

@fjjma #allthefeels #happiness #joyful #hunger

Lastly, was the contemporary art in the basement. There was an interactive exhibit of various paintings. The goal was to engage the audience and gain exposure on social media. The exhibit encouraged visitors to take pictures of the artwork and then post them on social media using hashtags representing the emotions that the artwork evoked. There was a piece of installation art that was a tv screen laid on the floor with green bubbles on it. You blow through this long tube to move the bubbles on the screen, so pretty much, you're the artist determining the arrangement of bubbles on the floor. It was really neat. We ran through the entire basement in less than 15 minutes (one of the security guards reminded us that the museum was closing very soon) so I couldn't appreciate the art as much as I wanted to. 

@fjjma #allthefeels #sad #anger #dammitjustletthatpuppyin

I had a very enjoyable afternoon at the art museum. I wish we had another 2 hours so we could properly experience the first floor's and basement's collections. The museum is free and definitely worth an afternoon's visit. There is so much there; I think it rivals the Oklahoma City Museum of Art in its permanent collections. Lacey couldn't answer all of my questions, probably because they were dumb (Does anyone know why that woman in the sculpture has two horses' heads for legs? And how come interns can't touch the art?...Doesn't seem fair that she can't touch anything.) but she did make my visit a lot more fulfilling. Our last stop was the gift shop. It was small but jam packed with fun, nerdy, art souvenirs. I got these badass socks for myself and Wes. Totally wearing them to conquer Open Enrollment season at my job (the smaller girl's pair reads "badass" on the top).

All in all, a very good day! I would definitely recommend going to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art on the University of Oklahoma campus and I would love to return myself.  Let me know if you want to go!

Lacey & Erica make fused glass jewelry.

A few months ago, my job sent me to Insurance Continuing Education classes at Francis Tuttle vocational school. Instead of paying attention to the instructor, I decided to browse through the course catalog. (C'mon who actually cares about continuing education? LOL) I saw that they offered a lot of interesting arts & crafts classes: canvas painting, introduction to sewing, French cooking, quilting (which I really wanted to take but was offered in the middle of the day), etc. One of the classes that caught my eye was Introduction to Fused Glass Pendants. I've played with jewelry making before in my spare time and wanted to actually take a class. I've never worked with glass before and thought this would probably be my only chance to do so.

I roped my friend, Lacey, into coming with me. (She's super artsy and I thought she'd really enjoy the class.) The class was held on two consecutive Wednesday nights. Our teacher was a friendly woman who makes glass jewelry with her husband for a living. They sell at craft shows and festivals. There were two other ladies in the class with us. I'm glad it was a small class because we got to use all the equipment without taking turns & choose all glass pieces we wanted. We all had a good time & I got to talk about craft shows with our teacher. (Yes, I shamelessly handed out business cards.)
       An aside... Our teacher taught a mosaic class a few weeks earlier and was having some trouble bringing in her supplies. She had a cart but the wheels were warped. Her husband fixed the cart after the class and everything ended up being okay. But, I guess she was lamenting to the janitor before her husband could fix the wheels. At the start of our class, the janitor brought in a replica of the cart! He had looked at her design while they spoke earlier and made her a new one ... with really nice wheels. What a sweet gesture!! (Lacey and the teacher thought it was creepy but I found it endearing.) Sadly, she didn't want it since her husband fixed her cart & she doesn't need two. She gave the janitor's cart to me so I could use it for my craft shows!!

That's Lacey expertly cutting glass on the top picture.

Anyway, back to fused glass jewelry class...
       The first thing we learned was how to cut glass. I thought it would be hard (and a little dangerous) but it is actually really simple. And no one got hurt! All we did was score a line across where we want to cut on the glass, then take this tool that looks like a pair of pliers and clamp it on the glass. It breaks apart where the glass was initially scored. We cut a few strips of clear glass to make a sun catcher. Oh and all we needed to do to put the pieces together was glue them with Elmer's glue. I thought it would be a much more elaborate process.

 After our sun catcher experiment, we moved onto the jewelry making part. There are three steps to making a glass pendant. First, we cut a piece of glass to be our base piece. This is the shape that the pendant will be. Second, we took small broken pieces of glass and placed it mosaic style on the base piece. Lastly, we cut a piece of clear non-colored glass that was slightly bigger than our base piece and glued it on top. Our teacher took our pendants home to fuse in her kiln. She told us that the mosaic pieces will melt and fuse together and the clear glass piece on top will act like a top coat to protect the colored pieces. That was it for our first class.

I didn't make the middle piece. It was a reject from one of our teacher's craft shows. We each got a pre-made pendant to practice wire wrapping on.

I was anxiously waiting all week for my glass pendants. The teacher warned us that the pendants will look different after coming out of the kiln. I was both eager to see how mine turned out and worried they wouldn't look pretty anymore after firing. My sun catcher turned out amazing and exactly how I wanted it to. My three pendants were a surprise, though! I liked them but they certainly did change in the kiln. We just tied some cheap string to our sun catcher but for the pendants, we had the option to glue on a hook (boring) or wrap wire around them.

Our teacher wanted us to each make at least one wire wrapped pendant so she gave us some of her glass jewelry from previous craft shows to wrap. (I got the green piece with the majestic horse. Lacey got a yellow piece also with a horse. I'm thinking horse jewelry doesn't sell well at shows. LOL) Wire wrapping was a little more complicated than making glass pendants. First, we each chose three pieces of wire. Then we gathered the pieces like we were getting ready to braid them. Next, we hooked one end onto a drill & held the other end with pliers. When we turned on the drill, it spun the three separate pieces into one thick wire.

Lacey is both an excellent friend and hand model.

Not all glass pendants come out of the kiln perfectly round or with straight edges (even the practice pendants our teacher gave us were bumpy around some edges). Before we wrapped the wire around them, we needed to smooth them out. We did this by using a sanding machine. Also, if the pendant turned out bigger than expected or not the desired shape, this machine was used to reshape it.

We each took turns holding our pendants against this spinning wheel which ground down the excess glass that we didn't want. I had to grind away a lot of excess glass on mine because I cut the clear glass top coat piece to be way too big. After we were satisfied with the final shape of our pendants, we moved to a second machine to etch a groove around the perimeter of the pendant.

The back of my long pendant is so pretty...too bad it's the back.

For me, etching the groove around the pendant was the hardest part. The blade on this machine seemed sharper and scarier than the sanding machine. So I did this step very slowly and carefully (probably too slowly because I was the last one to finish mine). I had to hold the pendant against the blade as it spun and then slowly push the pendant toward the blade to etch out a groove. The groove had to be equal depth around the entire pendant. Oh and there was water and glass shards flying off the machine...hence, scary! 

After the groove was made, we took our wire and wrapped it around the pendant. When we got to the top, we twisted it around and made a neck and bell (fancy jewelry terms for "where you string the necklace though"). I enjoyed making my practice pendant and I thought the wire made it look really nice & unique so I started on the glass pendants that I had made. The lavender one was pretty simple to wire wrap but the square black one was so difficult. I stayed after all the other ladies left because it took so long. Lacey was a sport and stayed behind with me even though hers were complete. In the end, the teacher had to jump in and help me with it. But it was all worth it. My black square pendant (and all the other ones) ended up looking fancy & professionally done. (Can we say handmade Christmas gifts!?!) At the end of the class, I was really proud of myself. I had done something new and out of the ordinary, I learned a new trade & had an enjoyable time doing it.