Blue Glass Sculpture With Beads and Bud Vases

Last week I found a wonderful pile of blue glass chargers at a rummage sale. I started to buy one or two of them (they were $1 a piece), and the woman in charge of the rummage asked if I’d take the whole pile for $5. She was trying to get rid of things. You know what they say about one person’s trash being another person’s treasure, right?

Well ever since then, I’ve been thinking about what to do with those glass charger plates. They are oversized, so they have a lot of potential.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about bud vases. I see these things everywhere, and while they don’t generally make good sculpture pieces on their own, I kept thinking about how to incorporate them into a larger sculpture. And then I found a rummage that was selling a box of eight of them for $3. I couldn’t resist.

So I gathered the bud vases and charger plates and other misc. pieces I had laying around, and set out to make a new sculpture.

 

 

I started with a nice sturdy punch bowl that I bought at Goodwill.

 

 

Then I glued a large vase to that, and another charger plate on top of that. I thought it would be interesting to add a variety of bud vases to the next layer. Since I got all these at the same time, they were the same type and size. That’s important when you’re stacking glass pieces on top of each other.

I put a dollop of glue on the bottoms of the bud vases.

 

 

And glued them all in place.

 

 

I liked the look of them, but I also wanted to jazz them up a little. I asked Genevieve what she thought.

 

 

She said, “Add some beads.” So I went to the dollar store and got a couple bags of beads, both large and small.

 

 

The larger ones I’d use later, and the smaller ones I’d use to fill the bud vases with. I didn’t need to fill them all the way, just enough to add some interest.

 

 

I liked how it was coming together. See how that middle one got a bead stuck? I actually thought that looked kinda cool. So I added a few more on top of it.

 

 

Then I put another charger plate on top of the bud vases.

 

 

I put a blue vase in the middle of the top charger plate.

 

 

I decided that it needed some beads or something to partially cover up the openings of the bud vases that showed through. So I took the larger beads that I got at the dollar store, and glued them around the edge.

 

 

So far so good.

 

 

Time to finish this thing up. I added a few small layers to the top. I used a hobnail plate because I thought it went well with the beads. I also added a final blue bead up on top. (I think I might replace my dying plants with this sculpture instead!)

 

 

[easyazon_image align=”right” height=”160″ identifier=”B00UTLAW62″ locale=”US” nw=”y” src=”https://cherieburbach.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/51EI0bosKoL.SL160.jpg” tag=”wwwthediffere-20″ width=”100″]This project is featured in my book, [easyazon_link identifier=”B00UTLAW62″ locale=”US” tag=”wwwthediffere-20″]Glass Sculptures: How to Make Beautiful Sculptures for the Garden Using Vases, Bowls, and Other Glass Pieces[/easyazon_link].