Cases, Burnishing, Colorization Oh My!

     After recovering from last week I am back up and running. This weekend my father and I went to my favorite glass shop in all the world  Stained Glass Supplies in Eagle Rock. The nicest people and the coolest products! Love the guy there who cuts the glass. He is super friendly and always helps his customers. My dad was in love with all the crazy glass and I was able to pick up four sheet of glass I can not wait to use... more on that later.
    Before I left Pasadena I was able to pick up some supplies at Blick. I purchased some colored pastels and book binding paper. After Blick I headed out to Los Nietos to visit my grandparents home. I was able to get two plates done of some of his tools. On Friday after my grandmother's services I will be photographing my crazy family. It was nice to see my aunts and my uncles. I do not get to see them all that often, but they look the same to me! Every year we have a family reunion and I remember being little and timid in front of them because they were so loud and always hugging and kissing the kids. Now I have learned how lucky I am to have that kind of a family.

Work table. Have everything planned out and experimenting.

                                      

The leather book binding paper I purchased at Blick.

Frustrated. I hated the super bright red paper. 

                                          
         You can see the marks from the cotton on the plate. I suppose I pressed to hard. I am still trying to figure out this burnishing, but to me it makes a huge difference and worth sacrificing some plates. My grandfather was a carpenter and here is one of his many screw drivers.

     Here is an example of one of my grandpa's scissors. You can see the over rubbing again from this angle, in addition you may be able to see some of the gold pastel on the blades. I am not to happy with how the plates come out, but practice makes perfect.

Looks like petrified wood to me!

Love the greens! I know these would be perfect with a gold trim.

These glass pieces are complete perfection! I can not wait to use these as mattes in my ambrotype cases. I have seen some vintage daguerreotype frames who utilized a concept similar. So I am spinning my own ideas for cases and frames and can not wait to finish these bad boys! Super excited!