When It's Cold Out, Build Some Roses

It has been very, very cold outside this past week, down to -14 below zero on Thursday.  That's not a record-breaking low for Wisconsin, obviously, but it's a bit chilly.  I stayed indoors most of the week except for my jaunts out to do the chores of feeding the chickens and walking the dogs and some snow removal.  I did get some skiing in though, despite the cold, gotta love the Back Eight and the White Forest for the windbreak making skiing enjoyable. 

Since there's nothing much else I could be doing (besides cleaning, ick) I decided to finally get to work on the new lamp, a Tiffany reproduction Rosebush.  I figure if I can't have roses growing in the garden, I'll just make my own, and with Valentine's Day rapidly approaching and the cost of roses from a florist, hey, these are the next best thing.

I started out with the original pattern, colored one copy for ideas on shading, had some more Mylar copies made to cut apart for glass layout and then stuck the little pieces back on a paper holding copy:

Rosebush Pattern

Next, it's off to select glass:

Green is for Leaves

Hmmmmmmm....do roses have that many spots in their leaves?  Well, don't tell anyone, but mine do!  (I'm not the best rose gardener.)  All I have to do is find a bunch of leaves in this piece of glass.

There we go, half of the leaves for the lamp are laid out using my 'window' patterns with the interior of the leaf shapes removed.

Decisions, decisions.......do I want a pale blue background with some pink in it, or a more blue-green background?  I like the pink, but I like the blue, too.  Have to make a decision.

Darker blue won out, at least for now.

 Ready for cutting...

Hours of cutting and grinding later, and all washed and waiting for........

their numbers to be written on them so I know where the heck they go on the pattern.

And finally, here are a few of the roses I've been able to 'build' so far.  Right now, they are all stuck on an old window frame and sitting in the living room window in natural light where I can obsess over what is and isn't working. 

I have a whole lot more to make yet and they all have to be put on a form and soldered together, but here's some preliminary ones:

 

 They'll look better when the numbers are removed, too.  (I hope)

So, that's what's been going on around here this week.  I'm joining up with Tootsie over at Fertilizer Friday this week with my fake roses.  I hope no one minds.

Like Lynn Anderson's song says, "I Beg Your Pardon, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden."

(and this isn't one, either--but it's as close as I can get in February in Wisconsin!)