Paperweight "How to Do"

Had a question about the paperweights in the Febuary section of my blog, so here is how it is done. The paper weight is really easy to make. The core is just a gather with some frit melted down to make it somewhat solid. At this point you can do anything you want with the core to make it the way you want it to look. The outside is beach sand actually! It is from Pensacola, FL where I am from... LOL the funny thing is that is illegal to take the sand from the beach now. This came all about from Gnat when the hurricane came through and blew the sand up 11 stories to our parents condo. I decided to take some home when Gnat started to make the paper weights there in Florida. The guy here said that most likely the paper weight would crack if I placed the sand in it but he said go ahead and try. So I did and they survived. The spin in the paperweight is just an optic mold that after applying color or sand you just heat it up really good and place it into the mold. There are a few different ways that you can get the spin into the piece. Can you a block, marver, or use the diamond shears to spin the piece. In my opinion the easiest way is on the marver but a lot of people like to do it with a block. A little more advanced is the shears. Thus here are the steps in short:

1. Gather glass
2. Add color and reheat
3. Do what ever you want with the color to make the core the way you would like.
4. Gather again.
5. Add color again and reheat.
6. Heat it rippin hot and place into optic mold.
7. Reheat
8. Marve low to cool the section close to you then marve the top but don't go across the maver....marve in one spot you will see it start to spin.
9. Let cool and gather.
10. Block to desired shape and set jack line.
11. Cool piece and break it off.
12. Put it away.

You can place it into the optic mold as many times as you want it will give you many different looks to the piece. So have fun with it and try new things.

Sloth