Trish and I had a few old empty vitamin bottles that we had saved. The dark blue glass got me thinking about mosaics that we had seen while on vacation in Europe. I carefully peeled off the labels, then washed off the label glue with WD40, (wearing rubber gloves). A quick scrub with soapy water cleaned off the WD40. I bought a propane torch which makes it easy to make glass shards. Wearing safety glasses, I hold a glass piece with heavy gloves or long handled pliers. After about 5 seconds in the flame I dip the glass into cold water. The thermal shock produces many tiny cracks, and using the leverage from the long handled pliers, it's easy to crunch up coarse sand sized shards. Wearing safety glasses, I used a propane torch to run the flame point around the bottom corner of an empty glass jar. After about 90 seconds I dipped the jar into a pail of cold water. The thermal shock then split off the round bottom piece.Using a rubber scraper, 2 plastic pails, a gallon of water, and assorted screens, I soon had piles of washed shards. I spread the shards on to a few old metal trays from toaster ovens. I then baked these trays of glass shards at 200 degrees F for 30 minutes to dry them out. At a thrift store, I bought 2 old 8 inch by 10 inch picture frames. Using tweezers I placed the shards on one of the frames. The frame was horizontal so the pieces stayed in place. For Phil's glass art Jan 10 2019, when I was happy with the arrangement, I used just enough glue to hold the pieces in place. The matching wood frames were then glued together around the edges so that the sharp shards are trapped between the glass panes. A couple of strong screw eyes and it was ready to hang in the window. When the sun shone through this art item, I was amazed at the variation in the shades of blue. I would like to recommend Elmer's washable clear non-toxic school glue. No they are not fused. Phil just glues bottle glass shards inside the jar bottoms with a clear school glue, then glues the 2 halves together with a hot glue gun. A small shiny metal binder clip is glued in to hang it up. A wax crayon is then touched to the hot glue gun tip to add some blotchy colour to the hot glue. A propane torch is used to heat the bottom corner of the glass jar which is then dipped in cold water. The thermal shock snaps the bottom off. Safety glasses are used throughout these processes. The shards are rinsed, then screened with a pasta strainer to remove the finer particles, only pieces about an eighth of an inch or bigger are kept. The rinse water is then filtered through a kleenex before it's poured out in the garden. A rubber scraper is used to put the fine particle paste into the garbage. These hanging glass ornaments look best hanging in a sunny window.

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While looking for more 8 inch by 10 inch picture frames at thrift stores, I noticed some red, pink and yellow glass items that were very inexpensive. The brown shards came from an old beer bottle. I used the same routine as the first one to get the shards. Instead of a hot glue gun, I used a non toxic school glue that dried clear.

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I used the same routine as before to get the shards and also to create this 5 inch by 7 inch glass art. The glue was not quite dry when the finished piece was hung vertically in a sunny window. The combination of glass shards and glue slumped downwards slightly giving the green and brown hill a more 3 dimensional look. An interesting jagged crack also opened up in the sky above the flowers. The glue has still not dried and the pieces are still sliding around a bit. A finer screen was used, so the shards are much smaller than the ones in the first 2. Hundreds of tiny drops of moisture have condensed on the back glass pane, (the glue seems to be water based), which makes the art sparkle more than the others.

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These 2 hanging ornaments are about 3 inches in diameter. I bought a propane torch which makes it much easier to make the tiny coarse sand sized glass shards. Wearing safety glasses I hold the glass with long handled pliers. After about 5 seconds in the flame I drop the shard into cold water. The thermal shock produces many tiny cracks, and using the leverage from the long handled pliers, it's easy to crunch up coarse sand sized shards.

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This 8 by 10 inch glass art piece has a large, home made, wood frame to hold all the glass solidly in place.

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