Lessons...

Some days you're the windshield...some days you're the bug...
I always say, 'every mistake is a learning experience'. You know those days when you're just fated to learn a lot??? Yeah...
     Lesson 1: Don't take the short-cut...you'll just end up lost and have to back-track and go the long way around after all...
     Lesson 2: Don't try to finish the project when you're tired...your muse is tired too, and is going to be pissed off if you keep her up...

I  know that when I am working with a glass pattern, where pieces are going to be cut to fit together, (see picture) I am supposed to cut each piece individually...

     Drawing the pattern (as it will look when finished) onto the glass and cutting the pieces out that way is always a bad idea...
But what the heck...I can cut really straight, what can go wrong? I'll just take the short-cut! Uh huh...Well, there's always that one tiny bump on the corner of one piece that needs to be ground off. Then one little edge of another piece is a teeny bit too sharp and will probably cut the copper tape when I wrap it, so I'll just bump it against the grinder once...no problem, right? Well now, the other 2 pieces need to adjusted just a smidge to re-align the edges with the first two... see where I'm going with this???
     Well, the copper tape and solder do hide some minor differences, so it's all good, right? On to the taping...

Remember the 3/8" v 1/4" copper tape controversy? Well, since the top is a free-standing flat piece which will get handled a lot, I want it to be sturdy. I like the way the wider tape looks when soldered on the edges of the box, and the tiny bit of extra width it provides will allow for more metal (solder) and provide stability...Yeah...this is where the tired muse got a little pissy and neglected to mention to my tired brain that, while it looks good on a single edge, butting two edges together is going to double the width, and look ridiculously clumpy! She's got a mean streak, that girl... I like the edges on this lid, but the internal lines look like stove pipes! Five lovely pieces of glass, all hooked together by the art studio version of heavy metal! And did Miss Muse stop there at her spitefulness? Oh nooooo....
    

Let me explain about the tape used for stained glass... Solder only sticks to metal, so in order to put solder around the edges of glass, you have to put metal on them. You can either encase them in pre-made strips of lead or zinc, called came, or you can wrap them with copper tape (Tiffany method).  There are different kinds of copper tape...copper-backed, (no other color on the adhesive side), black-backed, (coated with tarry black glue), and silver backed, which looks nice with clear glass, where you will be seeing a little of the back side of the tape through the project. Now...do you think Miss Pissy Muse had the courtesy to say "Hey, wait a minute. You should probably switch over to the pretty silver tape to put that beveled clear piece in"? Nooooo... So let me sum this all up...
     Now I have a lid which is made of mismatched pieces, held together by a thick, clunky road map of (now wasted!) solder, with a beautiful center princess of a gem rudely showing off her dirty underwear!
     ...sigh...