Kiln Full of Sparkle

I spent a large chunk of the day filling the kiln with pendants and cufflinks, and now I'm mentally exhausted! With beaded or chainmaille jewelry, you have a burst of creativity while designing the piece, then you get to mentally recharge while assembling the piece. When making fused glass jewelry, you try to fill the kiln to conserve electricity and to save time since each cycle takes 12 hours, and so you must think up new things for hours at a stretch without a break. It's tiring!

Tomorrow, when the kiln reaches room temperature, I'll spend another few hours grinding some of my melted constructions into circles and putting crisp, square edges on others with a diamond lap wheel, then they'll go back into the kiln again to soften those edges just a bit (the name for this second firing is "fire polishing", a term I love even though there's no actual fire involved).