Sometimes art supplies can be very expensive. So, when I find an alternative source, it can be very rewarding. Earlier this year, while walking around our local Target store, I saw some unfinished ceramic dishes in the dollar section of the store. Some were letters of the alphabet and others were geometric shapes.

When I saw these, I wondered if they would be useful for molds for my fused glass. Casting molds can cost $10 for even a small mold. So, if these would work, they would be very economical. I purchased one of the hearts and took it home. I figured if it didn’t work I would only have wasted a dollar (and some scrap glass).

Before testing it, I did some on-line checking to see if anyone else had already tried using one of the small dishes. Sure enough, several people had already tried the dishes and were successful.

Using some scrap glass I made a heart paperweight (for Valentine’s Day) and a heart paperweight in support of Peace for Ukraine.

With Mother’s Day approaching, I had another idea for the heart molds.

Using scrap glass, I made some hearts of soft blue and soft green glass.

The resulting hearts were enhanced with various murrini and freeze/fuse glass shapes, tack fused to clear glass and placed in a 5×5 frame with a quote from Therese of Lisieux that I thought was very meaningful for Mother’s Day.

I also made another heart using some pieces of vitregraph and murrini.

My mom’s gift was hand delivered when I visited her recently and my mother-in-law’s gift was recently mailed to her. So, don’t worry that their surprise for Mother’s Day is impacted by this post. I think both of them enjoyed their gifts.

I have since stocked up on more dishes, letters (unfortunately they did not have the entire alphabet), diamonds, more hearts and hexagons. I am looking forward to using these new molds. If anyone has any special requests for heart/letter, please contact me to inquire about what I can make.