Glass Pieces

I had someone ask me to post more glass pieces.  I always post my stuff on Facebook under Wayne's Panes.  (There is a link on the right column.)  But I will post a few of the newer things.

I have been playing with my GlassEye program.  This is a CAD program specifically for designing stained glass.  I want to make sure people know that these are ideas to be possibly made.

I really do hope to make these two.  I think a stained glass portrait is a cool concept.  I have not seen many of these.

A final glass piece.  This was Nic's Christmas present for this year.

Playing With Naked Men (NSFW)

 Well, I have been getting things boxed up to move.  But when I need to stop because I am getting frustrated with the process, I have been playing with my stained glass program.  I have said before that finding male nude stained glass patterns is neigh on impossible.  So I have decided to do it myself.

 It is fun to do!  And hopefully I will be able to actually be able to make some, if not all, of them.  They are all works in progress and are learning experiences as I try to figure where to put glass seams and how to use different colored glass (or same colored glass) to create effects.

Wedding Present

My nephew is an Iowa Hawkeyes fan.  He wanted a Hawkeye in glass for his wedding.

This would be almost impossible for me to try to make in stained glass with my skills and tools.  So, instead I made this:

Same colors.  I think it will have more longevity than the Hawkeye.  Hopefully when they are celebrating their 25th anniversary, they will still be enjoying this instead of having it relegated to a dusty corner of the 'man cave'.

New Pattern

Maybe I am just a perve, but I am having fun making some male patterns.  As I said, there are not a whole lot of them out there.  Now I just have to get the time to make them!

Here is a new one, I call it "Red Undies"

Nick's Santa for 2010

Even though it took into 2011 to get it to him!  But here it is, only seven more and the collection will be complete!

More for Suzy

Light transmission.  (Finished product will have black lines.)

With flash

Without flash.

Note for Suzy

(click on photo to embiggen)

Well, all the pieces are cut out!  Now there is grinding, taping, and soldering to do.

Color Choice for Suzy

Suzy, these are the colors I am thinking about.  I bit of a change but I cannot find a red that will give me the light/shadow effect I want.  The top picture is with light shining through the glass, the bottom is with reflected light.  To go to red, I would need to go red/pink.  If this is ok, great.  If you want the red/pink, we can try that.  If you have another color let me know.

The Backward Clock

I wanted a clock that I could read while getting ready in the morning.  So, when looking in the mirror, it is possible to read the clock correctly.  I learned how to make the clock run backwards on YouTube.  (You can learn AMAZING thing on YouTube!)  Then made the clock face.  First one so it was a learning project.

My Wife and Kids

 

I have to write a "getting to know you" piece for the bulletin at new church where I will be starting next week.  I HATE writing these things.  It is not that I can't do this, it is just that we have the "wife and kids" thing.

Do I not say anything?  Well, that is a red flag 'cause everyone talks about their "Beautiful Wife and Three Awesome Kids."  (Doesn't anyone have an ugly wife and mediocre kids?)  But if I say, "I have a wonderful partner of 4 years.." immediately, some people are put off and I am not around to do any damage control.

I always wonder why it has to become such a big thing.  Granted, I am gay, but it is not the ONLY thing in my life; it is not even the most interesting thing in my life.  But the moment I say it, it becomes the thing people latch onto.  And if I don't say anything about it, people accuse me of "trying to hide it because I am ashamed of it."  Neither of these are true: it is just part of who I am, like I have brown hair and a paunch. 

I don't know.

The picture at the beginning of the post is the new piece I just finished.  I kind of like it!  But do you know how hard it is to find male nude patterns?  Female nudes are everywhere, but men are mighty sparse.  And then again, comes the whole thing on the appropriateness of a priest making nudes.  I don't know if I would feel the same way if this were a female nude because those are accepted by society.

I am probably just overthinking everything.

What's a Happinin'?

I haven't wrote much of what has been happening with me over the past few weeks. I am not sure if it is because I am too busy or just tired of complaining.

I have come to the conclusion that the phrase, "Well, at least you have a job" needs to be deleted from the English language. Yes, I have a job, but no, I am not happy to be doing it. I know that I am not "above" the job, but my gifts and talents are not being tapped in this area. Making coffee is not rocket science. But by the time I am done with the job, the introverted me is exhausted.

We, at church, just finished our Craft Bazaar. I did pretty good, I made about $100. I am going to put the cash to getting some glasses. I didn't think I was over priced, but people just didn't seem to be buying. I don't think $5 for a glass mitten ornament is too much, but people were not interested. Maybe my design was not appreciated.  I actually ended up giving more of them away then I sold.  We had some non-members who came to our church to open a booth and I gave them a mitten to say thanks.

The Christmas trees did not sell at all.  I had $7.50 on them.  The buttons alone were probably worth that much.  The buttons were antique.  Oh well, they will either go on our tree, or they will become Christmas gifts.  I like them!

The church didn't sell, but that is ok, I wasn't expecting it to.  The Bazaar was a good excuse to make it.   When finances are tight, a good excuse is a life saver!

I had a baptism on Sunday.  It went ok, except for the fact that I had gotten the baby's name wrong in the sermon.  Well, I got it right where it counted and I guess that is all that matters.  (Although I don't think God cared if I misspoke or not!)

Between my church's worship service and Nick's church's service, we went to Bronner's.  Man, that place was packed!  But we kind of expected that.

Now I am home for the day.  Nick has to work.  (I still wish I could afford a vacation for us.  I will have to think about how to make this happen.)  I am hoping to get some applications put out for a different job today and make some things for Christmas.  One thing I want to make is a "yard flag" for in front of our house.  (Out of glass, of course!)

Other wise, life is what it is.

You see some interesting things at the ol' Bucks. Yesterday was no exception. Tfere was this man who came into the store and started to do scratch-off lottery tickets. After a little while, he would get up, walk away, and then return with more scratch-offs. This continued for over two hours! I wanted to say to him, "Why don't you just give me your money, I will give you 25% back, and you will be about at the same financial level. Then you can go out and enjoy the sun! Or, if you want to waste time indoors, go to a movie! It would be cheeper!

The stained glass is St. Francis. I made him for a friend of mine who has just graduated from seminary. He is a fan St. Francis so I thought it was appropriate.

I still am trying to figure out some way to keep my head above water and still keep my sanity. (What little of it there is.) I have talked about getting my hours reduced at SBUX because I really don't want to ditch the church thing. But keeping the sanity is what is really important. We live in a world that does not value self-care. So when you tell people that you need to do something just because, they tend to look at you funny.

Oh well, life continues on.

Update et al...

Wah! My feet hurt! Things would probably be better if I lost about 75 lbs. Or if I could stop working at Starbucks. Or, better yet, BOTH! But as that is probably not going to happen in the near future, I just get to deal with my feet hurting.

We have a new person at work, and I have been given the task of training her. I guess if you are noisy enough, they give you more work to keep you quiet. But that is ok, this lady is eager to learn and seems like a good worker. Hopefully I can teach her some good habits before she develops the inevitable bad ones.

At work the other day, I saw an older guy, probably in his 70's, with a jacket on that said "Viagra" in huge letters on the back. I wondered why someone would want that on their jacket, but then figured if you are 70 and can get it up (by whatever means) it must pay to advertise!

I entered two pieces in the Delphi Art Glass Festival this year.

The first is the DaVinci Chic

The other piece is the Cat Clock.


This is the competition that I entered last year and won second and third place in my category, suncatchers.

I am not hopeful of winning any awards this year. The competition is tough. But it is still fun to have my pieces in a public show.

You know, you never know how much you look at a clock until it is gone. Since the cat has been gone, both Nick and I have commented on looking at the wall and being frustrated that the clock is not there. So to remedy the problem, a new clock has been made:


Not a whole lot, but it works. Nick jokes that we will eventually have a clock for every season! Not a bad idea if you ask me. I was surprised how hard it is to draw an egg that looks like an egg. Then, of course, trying to draw the stripes so they work. Oh well. It is difficult having an imagination that surpasses my drawing abilities. It is not wonderful, but it is seasonal and it works.

Christmas Recap

A post-Christmas wrap-up.

Christmas was good. It was busy but that is what you expect being clergy, let alone a clergy couple. On Christmas Eve, I went one way, Nick went the other. Our respective churches are about equal distances in opposite directions. Bummer, but that is life.

I got to the church early so I had time to wrap the Bear Nativity that I got for Nick. He loves Boyds Bears so when we saw this on one of our day trips, I knew I needed to get it for him!

I was getting worried because I had to order it online and it finally arrived on Christmas Eve. So I had to wrap it at the church so he would not see it not have an idea what it was.

The Christmas Eve service went well. The church was warm and cozy. The sermon went well. (It was one of my favorites.) Then there were meatballs after the service. I headed home and got a call from Nick telling me that he was stuck in a traffic jam.

When Nick finally got home, we had shrimp, Asti, and opened presents. One of my presents I received early. While we were unwraping gifts, the clock hit zeros which meant that all the displays started showing "Ho!"

At the opening of the post is the Santa I made for Nick this year. It is a Polish Santa. He seems to like it and that makes me happy. Below is a coffee cup Nick gave me. I love it! I think it is just too cute! (He almost squeals like a little girl!)


On Christmas Day, we went to Nick's brother's house. We had a good time. And this year I managed to duck getting what could probably be described as the worst gift I have ever gotten. Nick's family does a $20 gift exchange/swap. Nicks SIL, while owning a florist shop, buys the WORST gifts ever. This year went above and beyond the call. This years gift was...


Yes, that is right, Miracle Putty and Puck Lights. And I almost had the son of the SIL swap this crap stuff for the $20 gift card to Target that I had received.

But we had a great time and then it was back to work. The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful.

Hope your Christmas was happy and bright!

I Think I Got Everything Done!

I think I finally got all the Christmas presents that I intend to give this year done! I started early so I could get them done before Christmas Eve like last year. And I would like to have gotten things done a little earlier, but at least they are done. The picture is of one of the ornaments I made for some friends. They are about three or four inches long. I thought they were just about the right size for a tree. I made seven of these today after church.

Weekend Recap

Well, another weekend is drawing to a close. From my point of view, it has been ok. I have had the opportunity to get some more work done on the stained glass. The picture is the clock I am going to give to Nick's sister and BIL for helping us move. They have been so very helpful. I just might make one for us! (Heavens knows we need more more stained glass around here!)

Nick's Santa is coming along and I hope to have it done by Christmas Eve.

There are a few presents that I could make but it is not pressing.

Preaching went well. Things are going well at the church also. I am pleased to be doing church stuff again.

The only downer is that I heard that my mom is in the hospital with diverticulitis. She had this about ten years ago and they had to do surgery to correct it. Hopefully she will not need surgery this time. My dad is feeling quite lost without her. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. My dad too!

Gift Exchange Present

A clock I made for the family gift exchange. I think it is pretty cute! I would keep it. Who knows, maybe I will make another for myself! One of the things that I love about making stained glass, all the glass for the petals came from the same piece of glass. I almost hated to cut it up!

The flowers have absolutely nothing to do with the gift exchange, but I just downloaded the pictures off of my camera. These are the flowers Nick and I bought for each other. We got each other flowers for our anniversary. We agreed we would not buy anything for each other and of course we both lied! Nick bought roses for me, I bought carnations for him. So we put them together into a bouquet.

This is our third anniversary! (Nov. 28th)

You know, I find it interesting: We celebrate our anniversary not based on marriage but based on first time "together." In many ways, this is the kind of thing that the fundies would want. They would want to measure the relationship from when it was consummated. And here are us "Abominations" doing just that! Just goes to show you!

Cups and More Cups!

Well, the Christmas presents for my coworkers are done. And in the process, I got a commission to make another one!

Day Off

Nick gave me one of my Christmas presents early today. That's Right! It is a Christmas count-down clock! I absolutely love it! He said he could have waited until Christmas to give it to me, but what fun would that be? So I got to open it today and I was totally floored. I saw one a couple of years ago and have wanted one since. Now I have one! Nick is such a sweetie!


I have finished one-third of the stained glass sun catchers I am making for my coworkers. It takes me about an hour to get one out. Right now, I think the green one is my favorite. I find myself mentally thinking who should get which one. Of course, I want to give the best ones to the people I like!



It was snowing this afternoon. As I was driving to go work on glass, I drove over the Red Cedar river. It looked so pretty I decided to take some pictures. (Yes, I know the first picture is upside down but I like it better that way!)

I also went jewelry shopping today. For my piercing. (No, Nick and I are not planning a trip to Connecticut.) I was wearing a Jesus Christmas sweatshirt. I had so much fun going into Hot Topic with a Jesus shirt on and seeing if someone is going to wait on a 40's Christian. Then to ask them about 10 gauge captive bead body jewelry and watch the puzzled look on their face is priceless!

Hope your day is going great!

Christmas Presents For People At Work

I have decided not to make either the snowman nor the ornament. I have decided to make a coffee cup for my coworkers. Appropriate, huh?