SOAP DISH MOLD OCTOBER 2014

I filled this mold with fine frit green mixed with tangerine etc and am currently firing it with the following schedule.  Wasnt sure  exactly how to use the mold.  Is it a slumping mold?   Or can I put scraps of glass in it and fuse?  Can I do both?  If I use it as a slump mold how do I take advantage of the two points of the leaf on the left and right of the picture?  Am I suppose to cut the glass to fit over that.  Cutting the glass to reflect the two points would be hard?  So is this a casting mold?  If so then it requires a lot of frit and I was unsure of that.  But I used it as a casting mold and filled it with fine frit of a mixture of colors and fired it as follows:

300dph..................................................1375 degrees................................10 min
Full..........................................................900 degrees.................................1 hour
100 dph....................................................700 degrees.................................off

Let's see how that works.  I understand that firing it low is best because you can always fire it again.  When firing I have also cleaned out my snowflake mold and will spray that with another layer of MR97 and fill it to fire tomorrow. 

That came out okay, two bubbles on the bottom side that set on the mold, and a few rough spot along the edges which maybe could have been taken care of or will be taken care of by fire polishing.  I will try it again but perhaps with glass to slump over.  

SMALL SNOW FLAKE DISH

I put two 4 1/2 inch squares with blue transparent on top and clear on bottom.  One I placed with blue on top and the other the clear square was larger than the blue so I placed the clear piece on the top.  I followed the colour de verre firing schedule for a panel fuse which kept the temperature very low so they suggested grinding the corners before firing.  Well I did not do that, knowing my kiln burns hot and both squares came out fine with rounded corners.  In fact I liked the one with the bigger clear square on top because placed the other way it could have fired with a clear rim around the blue top and that would have not looked like what i wanted.  The only problem with the firing was that I had "blemishes" on the bottom of both squares.  I had placed them on thin fire paper because my shelf itself had some blemishes but did not expect that they would show through the paper, but in this firing they did.    Well I am going to go ahead with them anyway.  I placed a snow flake on each one of them.  A few edges of one of the snow flakes had broken off but i placed it on the square, as I did the other and applied some glue and here is what they looked like.  Once they dry i will replace my shelf with the other one I have, although it too has blemishes, and I will tack fuse the snow flake to the square.