I've been featured...and I've got a new kitty!

I'm so excited! One of my cat face ornaments has been featured with some other lovely kitty items on Mouchois' Saturday Shopping Blog. Stop by and see sweet Melvin on the blog here along with Mouchois' Etsy shop for wonderful kitty toys!

Here's the newest kitty in my Etsy shop. I try to make one at least once a month, soon I'll have to plan a week or two of kitty cat making. This latest kitty is grey and white with a pink nose pad and aqua blue eyes.

Here's the kitty that inspired me to start making these kitty faces. He's a stray that stays on the back porch of a house across the street from me and I've been caring for him for the past two years. He's kind of a rough wild kitty--likes to attack and to this day I wear leather gloves when I hand him his meal. He's scratched me more than once, but everyday when he sees me coming over to see him he gets all excited. Honestly, I look forward to seeing him every day, too.
One day while I dropped off his breakfast, it dawned on me that I had some glass globs that were the same stunning blue color as his eyes. I went back home and drew up the very first kitty face and put it together that day. Below are the basic steps involved in creating a cat face.

This is the basic pattern that I use. I've choosen two carribean blue glass globs for this kitty.

Here all of the different colored glass pieces have been cut out and fit together like a puzzle.

All of the glass pieces have been wrapped with copper foil, except for the outside edge.

First, one side is soldered together. The piece is then turned over and the back side is soldered.

Lead came is wrapped around the entire bottom of the kitty's face. A separate piece of lead came it fit over the top of the head and ears and these to pieces are then soldered together.

Black patina is applied to all the solder lines and lead. Next, I've painted the pupils onto the glass globs.

A small loop is soldered to the back of the piece and the kitty is ready to hang up.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Coming up shortly~I'm hoping to start work soon on a frog/lilypad/water lily/dragonfly suncatcher and I'll be posting all the steps involved here.