Bold Projects → Hot Glass and Warm Glass Projects → Slumped Glass Plates

Similar Projects: Glass Blowing

We did this project one year as a family when we were on our annual summer trip to Florida and it was really fun. Slumping is essentially when you take a solid glass piece and place it over a form, then heat the glass until it starts to deform and “slumps” over or into the form, creating a new desired shape. This project technically involves both fusing and slumping – the design you create is fused to the plate, and the plate is slumped into the new form. Both fusing and slumping are “warm glass” processes.

This is basically an arts and crafts project for adults. We showed up at the studio and each decided whether we were going with a clear glass or white opaque glass plate, and then sat down at a long work table where we helped ourselves to all sorts of stencils, glitter, glass pieces, embellishments, cutting tools – virtually anything you could think of to create a design – and designed our plates. The plates are flat, so it was easy to map out a design first (with no commitment) and then apply adhesive to fix the design when you were happy with it.

Once our plates were finished, we left them in the capable hands of the studio owner, who took them to the back to be slumped and we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. Two days later, we picked up our plates. They were still mainly flat, but had slumped into gentle upward curves, slightly exaggerated at the corners.

Before Slumping:

After Slumping:

I guess most people put them on their walls as art, but Tom and I eat off of ours when we’re feeling fancy.

Bold Projects → Hot Glass and Warm Glass Projects → Slumped Glass Plates