WildBird Blog

Have you bought a pair of earrings made from a recycled bottle of Jameson, Bombay Sapphire or Guinness off me? Wanna know how they were made and why? Let me tell you all about them!

The more I learn about the glass industry the more I realise that we need to look at ways we can use glass that is already in existence. There are 2 troubling facts that is driving this decision for me.

1. We are running out of sand in the world. The main ingredient in glass is sand!

2. Virgin glass is more polluting than virgin plastic. This one hit hard. 

Now glass wins the environmental race as it is infinitely recycle-able, and we are very good at recycling it. But there is lots of glass already in existence that we can use instead of getting new glass. Which leads me to my own work and using drinks bottles to create jewellery.

Step 1:

Drink the contents and remember to have a really good time!

Step 2:

Clean the bottle, break it and then pull it into stringers!

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Step 3:

Take those stringers and wrap them onto a mandrel to create disks or beads. 

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Step 4:

Remove the beads from the mandrel and clean out the bead release from inside the holes. This is particularly fun to do with the hollow beads!

Step 5:

Make the earrings!

FAQ:

They're glass will they break?

The glass used to make bottles is a really strong glass. It has to be to protect the precious liquid inside. Have you ever drooped a bottle and it bounced? The beads are very strong and are very unlikely to break even if dropped.

That being said it is still glass and accidents do happen!

How long does it take?

The videos above are edited down or they would be very boring! Each bead takes a good few minutes and the hollow ones up to 10 mins each. Not to mention the other steps of cleaning, breaking and pulling stringers which took me 2 days to get all of the stringers I could manage out of one 70cl Jameson bottle!

If you have any more questions about your earrings drop me a line and i'll be happy to answer - hello@wildbirdstudio.com

Look how SMUG I am in this picture, you'd think I had all my Christmas shopping done early! Well I hadn't, but that was in 2018 and it was a very different Christmas then.

For a stress free festive season 2021, it is highly advisable to get all your shopping done as early as possible for many reasons. 

1. Small businesses can only do so much, so if you are shopping local (double smugness!) get in early as we might not be able to keep up with demand in December.
2. The post is going to be flooded with parcels and will have massive delays again this year as people stick to their online shopping habits.
3. There are massive supply chain delays even for us small businesses.
4. Prices are increasing for raw materials because of these delays.
5. Think how smug you can be with all your shopping done before December while everyone else is begging me for Framed Fuchsias and I've none left, you got the last one!

Shop Now

So this Christmas Shop Local, Shop Handmade and Shop Early!

This is a handy  guide on what to consider when you’re thinking about commissioning a stained glass window, door or art piece.

Now, I get queries all the time and the number one question is,

‘How much does getting a stained glass window cost?

This is the most difficult question to answer for a number of reasons.

• First off the price of materials fluctuates massively, a single square foot of glass can be anything from about €5 to about €230! The cheaper glass is machine rolled whereas the more expensive is usually handblown glass.

• Colour also plays a part in the cost of glass this does vary but, clear, greens and blues are on the cheaper end, with pinks and purples on the higher end and reds, oranges and yellows somewhere in the middle.

• Then the other big factor is how detailed the window will be. Stained glass is very time consuming to make, so if there is lots of detail then that will increase the price. You can typically expect to pay at least €150 - 300 a square foot.*

*With the rising costs of everything in 2022 this is no longer an accurate estimate. I will update soon with a better reflection of costs.

So here are a few steps you can take to prepare before getting in contact:

• Is to measure your area. This will help me to gauge the time scale of the project and it will help you anticipate the cost.

• Hop onto google and search for images of stained glass that you like. Consider styles like contemporary or traditional and simple or decorative. See what colours and textures appeal to you. Keep these in a folder or print them out for later.

• Consider the décor you already have in the room, is there a theme? What’s the colour scheme? Take a few photos of the area and put them with your research.

Now you’re ready to get in contact with me and the best way to do that is to send me an email hello@wildbirdstudio.com.

I will invite to you to come to the studio to look at samples of glass and discuss your design. I’ll take a look at the research you did and come up with some initial designs and sketches and a rough estimate of the cost and lead time. This initial consultation is free of charge.

If you then choose one of my designs and are happy to continue, I will finalise the design and send you the official quote. Once the deposit has been paid I will visit your site to take my own measurements if feasible.

It may seem like I don’t trust you or your measuring tape but believe me it’s better to measure twice and cut once!!

Once measured I'll create a full scale design which you will be more than welcome to come and look at in studio or I can send pictures. I do suggest coming to the studio so you can see the scale of it, look at your colour choices again and be really sure you are happy with it.

Once the Stained glass is finished and has been paid in full I will deliver it or it can be collected if you prefer. Glazing and instillation can be arrange at an extra cost with a third party or you can arrange this yourself.

And that is how you can order a stained glass commission!

The Tesseract lamp sprang to life back in 2018 when a good engineering friend of mine asked me if it would be possible….Challenge accepted!

In case you didn't know a Tesseract is a fourth dimensional cube. It is represented in maths like this.

It’s a box inside a box how hard can it be? Very hard as it turns out! To look at this light when it's finished, it looks so simplistic and uncluttered, it looks like it should be really easy to make.

Now I am dyslexic and numbers are very much not my thing, so...

I started off making the inside box, half the size, of the outside box. Simple enough. The challenge was to get the angle and width of the diagonal connecting pieces. Much harder. On my first try I unknowingly calculated for a 2D piece not a 3D piece so my diagonals we’re too short and therefore my angle was to sharp. And now I’m lost…

How do I accurately calculate that distance???? I literally had no idea.

I tried to talk it out with my friend but he didn’t understand how I was constructing it and I just plainly didn’t understand his maths.

So I McGiver-ed it!

I sat the inner box on a small tin that brought it up to roughly the right height, put the outer box over it,  and got a piece of paper slotted it down between the boxes and drew out the diagonal piece. Then got my ruler straightened out the lines. It was very rough but it worked for all the lack of maths!

I finished off the lamp and it looked really really well, my friend was delighted and it now resides with him in London.

I absolutely loved this light so decided to put it into my product range except id lost the pattern. Feckin’ typical!

 Enter my electrical engineering brother -

‘Eh Alison, why don’t you just use Pythagoras’s theorem?!’

WHAT????? That has an actual real life use??!!?? Yes, yes  it does kids. Apparently electricians use it all the time. Here is a little maths refresher if you, like me, could not remember what Pythagoras was doing with his life.

In a right angled triangle:

The square of the hypotenuse is equal to

The sum of the Squares of the other two sides.

Her is a picture of my workings out! I hope it makes sense to you. Either way my brother is a genius (don’t tell him I said that). Now it wasn’t perfect I still had to figure out my distance so I made a paper maquette to measure the distance on and then I could apply Pythagoras to get the angle.

I can tell you, when you have a well-made pattern life is so much easier, it all just goes together so nicely.

If you love the Tesseract lamp and you enjoyed reading the lamps journey into existence then you can watch me soldering a tesseract together in Find, Temple Bar for Dublin Design Night in April 2020.  

Ever since I began making the WallFlowers I would get people asking me to press their wedding flowers but unfortunately it was almost always too late by the time they'ed asked me and their flowers had already started to wilt. So I'd been mulling it over trying to think of a way to elevate this pain point for people getting married (see my blog post on pressing your wedding flowers). I had the loose tendrils of an idea.

I'd been sitting on this idea for almost a year now but I just had no idea where to start, not to mention already being incredibly busy building WildBird Studio up. So I don't really know what kick up the arse I got to go ahead and do this but I woke up one day in early 2019 and said feck it i'm gonna try get this done. 

Off I went and chatted to a few people who know things I don't, and figured out the ins and outs of what I needed to do. There I was gently chipping away at the various elements, until I got the call to do Bloom in the Phoenix Park, and lo and behold the perfect launch for the Flower Press. 

Needless to say I had to ramp it up a few gears and get organised. With just  2 weeks to go until Bloom I finally have most of the pieces in place! So in the spirit of my mentor who likes to say 'Done is better than perfect' I give you my very own branded flower press. 

We are taking part in Green Friday once again and offering our lovely customers 20% off their online order from Fri 23rd - Mon 26th with the code GFCM20 .

Green Friday is an initiative to support and promote local businesses. Every year millions of Euro are spent on a shopping frenzy know as Black Friday. In 2017, Irish Customers spent 16 billion in online shopping on this day, a staggering 75% of this was on websites outside of Ireland.

We have such a creative community here in Ireland so why not support them, and watch them flourish. This #blackfriday lets go local and have #greenfriday instead! Why not make a big effort to support at least one small local business; be it your local bakery, butcher, crafter or coffee shop... one small change could make a huge difference.

If you're getting married or know someone who is, pressing the flowers is a really gorgeous way to preserve a bridal bouquet. Wether you want to work with us to turn them into a wallhanging or you have your own plans for them these tips will help you to successfully preserve your wedding flowers.

1. You need to work fast!

If at all possible get those beautiful bridal flowers into books or a flower press that night or the next morning. If left for a too long they may dry out too much and when you try to press them they might start to disintegrate or if they've been kept in water they may start to rot. That being said sometimes you can get away with it so if the wedding flowers are still looking ok give it a go. 

2. Books or a press?

Although we use presses which are great for pressing large volumes of flowers like we do, i actually think flowers press beautifully in books. The paper is really absorbent and everybody has a few books lying about! Do not use books with shiny, glossy paper. Once your wedding flowers are in the books, weigh them down by putting lots of heavy stuff on top of them.

If you do have a press, Great! You'll need to make sure you have single or, even better, double walled cardboard and an absorbent acid free paper to put your flowers between. Sugar paper or blotting paper are great options.

3. Which flowers?

All flowers can be pressed but some press better than others. If your plan is to put them into a frame like our 'Wallflowers' then you need to choose bouquet flowers that aren't too bulky and have hard stems, but if you are doing something else then press away, just remember to apply lots of pressure to them to avoid them going mouldy.

4. How long to press for?

Ideally you would keep them pressing for at least 2 weeks. Although depending on the time of year this can vary, if its a cold and damp Autumn/Winter keep them in a little longer and in a nice dry room where there is a constant temperature.

If it is a nice warm and dry Spring/Summer then you can probably get away with pressing them for a shorter time. You can always check your wedding flowers and if you feel they need longer just pop them back in. 

5. Deciding what to do next?

Don't panic! The minute you get your bouquet flowers into a book or press you can relax. They will happily stay there for hundreds of years! Once pressed and fully dried out they are preserved and wont rot or go mouldy but over time their colour will fade. To avoid the fading keep them out of direct sunlight and in a dry room. 

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Make your own thank you cards and add a pressed flower to the front
• Use the flowers in resin projects like coasters
• Display them in a vintage frame
• Use them in a decoupage project
• Add them to a journal or diary

 Enjoy pressing your Bridal Bouquet xx 

Guys, listen up! 

The women in your life will love these Wallhangings! 

You're probably not yet thinking of the C word, and I don't blame you, Halloween is barely behind us but when you do break into that all too familiar sweat in a couple of weeks 'FECK what will I get her?' I want you to think of us. 

We've got Christmas gift ideas for your girlfriend, wife, sister, mother, or mother in law

You want to get her something that is thoughtful, right? Something special? Something a bit different? Maybe she has a favourite flower? Or does she love vintage?

These 'WallFlower' wall hangings cover all these bases and more. She will appreciate the thought and effort you put in to finding her something so individual, charming and delicate.

Don't buy her fresh flowers, buy her flowers she can keep forever!

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