Blog

We are putting together our next release of casting molds for ceramics. Garden designs always seem to be popular at this time of year. We begin the process by looking at what worked and what didn’t work on previous garden releases. We also start looking at garden centers, in magazines and just generally scoping out what seems to be hot for garden decor right now.

Gnomes are always popular, but they seem to be getting a little burst in popularity. Perhaps this is due to the new gnome movie? We want to do something fun and different for garden gnomes this year. A stumping gnome with a big hat and began to take shape in the sculpting room. We fell in love.

This is a picture of the first stumpy gnome as he is being crafted by the sculptor. Note the tagalong worm on the hat. We love this character so much that we decided to make a series of three. Each with a different hitch hiking garden critter. the finished pieces will range from 14″ to 11″ tall. 

The previously released flameless candles are beginning to sell briskly! We believe that a celestial design and a masculine design such as an eagle will be great additions to the series. We continue to sell the “Garden Slab” series. Owls can be seen every where currently, we have added an Owl Welcome slab to the garden slab series.

Stay tuned for more information about the progress of this newest Creative Paradise, Inc. ceramic casting mold flyer!

Today we filled the frit cavities of CF01 Ceramic Fusion cross with primarily medium grain transparent amber accented with a dash of ivory opal, a dash of transparent red, a dash of chestnut opal, and a dash of transparent yellow frit (all coe 96). We placed the piece in a glass kiln next to a pot melt that we are testing product with. This kiln will fire to 1675 degrees and hold for 60 minutes. We hope to go in the morning to find the glass flattened out in the frit cavities much as the glass in the pot melt would be.

We also are experimenting with underglaze combination on the Ceramic Fusion Crosses. It is our hope that the matte underglaze will be a great counter point to the gloss of the glass.On one cross, we sponged underglazes in hues from the terra cotta family on the top surface of the cross, avoiding getting the underglaze in the bottom of the frit cavities. We then coated the outside perimeter of this cross with Mayco Astro Gem Golden Sand. (This is the first time we’ve used a Astro Gem in many years, and it is nice to see them in the studio again.) The next cross was finished very similarly but with green underglazes and Mayco Burnished Steel on the outer part of the cross. We filled the cavities with the mix Amber frit with various accent colors of medium grain frit, accenting the terracotta cross with bits of persimmon and the green cross with bits of Amazon green. We topped each cavity with several pieces with coarse clear irid frit pieces.  These pieces will be cone 06 glazed fired in tomorrow. A glaze fire runs up to 1820 degrees F. The glass will flatten out completely in this firing.

 It will be very exciting to see how all of these pieces make it through the firing process! Oh, the magic of a kiln. For every finished project you see on our site, we have countless experiments behind them.  We will post the finished images on as soon as they are cool enough to hold in our hands.

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The Ceramic Fusion in the pot melt firing worked like a charm. We are a little iffy on the color selection, but the glass smoothed out nicely in the frit cavities and is secure on the ceramic surface. We used black, copper and green stains to apply a wash to the bisque.  The ceramic fusion crosses with glaze are in the kiln glaze firing. Below you should find the image of the cross after the glass kiln firing and stain application post firing on the bisque.

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The crosses fired with underglazes, glazes and frit in the ceramic kiln to cone 06 are pictured below:

The glass flattened out more, as expected, in this higher temperature. We still plan to toy with color selection. At this time, we have a Ceramic Fusion cross in the glass kiln with our glass enamel, Hues 2 Fuse and frit. We are firing it to a full fuse. It will be exciting to see if the Hues 2 Fuse covers the ceramic bisque with satisfactory results.

The glass kiln used to create the ceramic fusion cross in the first image was fired at 350/hour to 1675 held for 20 minutes and then annealed. We took the kiln this hot and held it so long to help spread the glass in the cavities..

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We have discovered that putting Hues 2 Fuse in the frit cavities helps the glass disperse in a lower firing. An added benefit to using Hues 2 Fuse on the Ceramic Fusion bisque is that the Hues 2 Fuse can add color and shine to the bisque area of the Ceramic Fusion pieces! Below you should find a picture of a Ceramic Fusion butterfly painted with Texture Black Hues 2 fuse and filled with amber/orange/red/yellow combinations of COE 96 frit and fired to 1465 in a glass kiln. We are excited about the vast possibilities!

What we learned: 

•  It is possible to place glass frit in the Ceramic fusion cavities and fire to a cone 06 firing and the glass will stick nicely to the ceramic and crazing is barely visible. Cone 06 glazes can be applied to the entire ceramic surface and then frit can be placed on the unfired glaze allowing for a single firing process. The glass flattens out to a very thin layer.
• If frit is placed in the frit cavities of Ceramic Fusion bisque and fired to a lower temperature (COE 96 glass fusing temperatures 1460-1480) the glass rolls into a ball and sometimes doesn’t adhere properly to the ceramic bisque. A hotter longer firing (1600 degrees) helps the glass to spread but has adverse effects on any dichroic glass placed in with the frit.
• Hues 2 Fuse (Creative Paradise, Inc. glass enamels) placed in the frit cavities of the Ceramic Fusion bisque prior to the frit will help the glass spread in the frit cavities. The Hues 2 Fuse can be applied to the bisque outside of the frit cavities add color and shine to the bisque.
• Texture Black Hues 2 Fuse is premixed and can be applied to the outer area of bisque. Texture Black should not be applied to the frit cavities beneath the frit because it will discolor the frit. The powder Hues 2 Fuse should be mixed with the Hues 2 Fuse Glass media (roughly 1:1 by volume) and one coat should be brushed into the frit cavities before the frit is placed in the frit cavities to help the frit to adhere and to spread in the cavities.
• The Hues 2 Fuse matures at glass fusing temperatures so the glass retains volume and any dichroic glass retains its quality.

We began the process of revamping our website in November of last year. We had several companies look at our site and bid on re-doing it. We landed with Three Cat Media of Chicago, Illinois ( http://threecatmedia.com/ ). They had good prices but most importantly, we liked their style. They created the look of the site and revamped our logo to fit the site and our new contemporary “vibe”. Next came the task of collecting images and information to send to Three Cat Media to place in the site. Obviously, this task is on going. The casting mold section will prove the most challenging. Not only are we isolating individual images from previously released product flyers, we are tagging painting instructions to go with these images. The service to our customer will be huge. We are also loading tutorials for our glass molds. It is our goal to have several design suggestions for each glass mold.  We also hope to load current tutorials into our hand building section and to add more images to our “Potters Gallery”. We are always looking for new submissions! We hope that you find many great tools and techniques in our new website. Make sure to sign up for our digital update service and check back to this site often because it will likely be changing most every day for the coming months!

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Feb. 1, 2011

We now have 99% of the glass molds represented on the website. Of course… we are always making new molds!

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We have added a category to the glass and hand building websites to feature “what’s new” in the mold catalogs. We are going to beginning adding vast numbers of casting molds into the casting mold catalog on the ceramic website. Look for things to be added the first week of March!

Our glass mold sales continue to be growing strong. We attribute the growth to our commitment to innovation. We realize that Creative Paradise, Inc. has several advantages over its competitors in the glass mold market.  We have talented sculptors and mold makers on staff. Many of our competitors either are left to use bisque shapes that already exist or to have very basic designs made for them overseas.  We have the resolve to innovate and the resources to experiment. Every glass mold we market has been designed specifically to be a glass mold and it has been performance tested before it is marketed.  We also have several very talented glass artists available to create top quality samples for each of our molds. These artists contribute greatly from beginning concept to finishing touches.

It is funny how the beginning of each year holds such promise. Every year we look back at what worked for us in the passing year and what did not work. 2010 was a good year for Creative Paradise, Inc. financially. We did have our personal challenges to endure with the passing of our mentor Ron Kimple, and with critical illness striking several members of our staff in the last quarter of the year.  With a bow of respect to those pioneers that came before us, we resolve to move forward with vigor.