_Next PageI try to always tell myself to take advantage of a good deal. Though when it comes time to do it, I never take advantage of it myself. I'm going to talk about how you can get a glass and other stuff at a good price.
A great place to get a good deal on glass, usually cheaply, is when someone wants to move into another house. Glass is (as you know it) sharp, delicate and heavy, which makes it really hard to transport. I've talked to various people all who've told me that they threw out tons of glass before moving, I really didn't want to hear that; why did they tell me that? So every so often I'll go through the newspaper hoping to find that one person ready to sell all their glass and every so often, one does come along.
Once I was able to get glass at $1.00 per square foot, which also included a lot of antique. I should have bought more. Even though I always spend a certain amount each time I go to the store, when It comes time to dish out a little more, I wind up chickening out.
Another good deal was some one was selling half sheets (20"x30" approx.) for about $8.00 a sheet. I gathered about 8 sheets. It came out to around $64.00. I thought that was quite a bit of money, though after bringing it home I found out the colors I chose would have been around $30.00 or more per sheet. The problem was that the sheets were pretty big. As my eye summed up the situation, the large glass sheets didn't seem very large, and the smaller sheets looked very small. However, when I brought it home, even the small sheets were large.
When I was there, I asked him when he was planning to have the final move out. He told me he was going to leave Tuesday, which at the time was in about 3 days. I decided that I wanted more glass, I called him up again (knowing that he should be there), to see if there was anything left. He said yes, so I went there for the second time.
I slowly looked over all the glass again to see what was left. I asked him if he could lower the price (even though he said $8.00 firm, it couldn't hurt to ask). As I asked it I also quickly muttered out loud (also to remind him), how heavy and difficult it is to transport glass around. He thought it over and said, "$7.00, that's as low as I go", I said, "OK", and then went back slowly picking through the glass again. When he saw me being choosy, he decided to sell all the glass that was left for $75.00. Now that amount seemed a little high, but I did some quick math and decided to go for it. It took quite a while to pack all of it; there we're a few large sheets left along with a lot of hobby sheets. When I brought it all home, I found out, after adding up all the square feet and dividing it by how much he would have charged me for a half sheet, it would have been around $3.00 per half sheet.
When I went the first time, he mentioned that he had some "blubs", or at least that's what I think he called them. I was expecting them to be your regular glass globs (or what ever you call them). It turned out to be not only some boring blobs, but jewels and silhouettes. He told me it was $5.00 a box, which I knew was a good deal. After adding up the prices, which I figured it cost about $3.00 per jewel (there were over 50 jewels which was a very good deal. I still don't know how much those sellouts are. This second time, he also gave me some solder he had around, and glass case (the type you put jewelry in.) The glass is painted white for some reason, but free, is free.
So that's one great resource (if you can find it) to get cheap supplies.
Another place is of course your stained glass shop on a good sales day. Now when I go shopping for glass this is the order of color types I go for in roughly this order (this all depends on price of course):
Now why would I get an ugly color? It's simple. Ugly-looking colors tend to look that way in the sheet but not on the actual project. I once bought a sheet of glass, Kokomo I believe, brownish gray with green streaks. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but for the buck or two that it cost me, I figured what the heck why not. I wound up using that glass for the tree in my butterfly panel. It made a perfect tree color. So If you see a weird color and don't know what to do with it, look at the color and see what it reminds you of. A grayish brown streaky glass, for example, may not be the cutest bunny, but may make that perfect weathered fence.
The occasional garage sale is also a good source. Look around garage sales for stuff that you can use. I do A LOT of garage sailing, and I found that about every 200th house or so will have some kind of stained glass at it. Usually it's nothing much, some foil, a glass cutter, etc. At one house I got actual glass sheets and some great scrap. Also look for jewels, bevels, pressed flowers, etc. Jewels can be found as is, though usually there may be a hole drilled in it. Most of the time these are from chandeliers (a good source of crystals by the way). Bevels may have been a coaster, a window pendant, or from a lamp. Don't be afraid to take something apart to get at the stuff you want. One time I got a bevel sun catcher with pressed flowers in the middle. I bought it for 25 cents, took it apart and got $2.00 worth of bevels and whatever the flowers were worth.
Always keep your eyes open. Make sure all of you family, in-laws, and friends know you do stained glass. Not necessarily to sell things to them (though that's OK too :) ) but if they know of someone who is moving and mention your name. Although a little mean (it hasn't worked yet BTW), I always try to recommend stained glass as a good hobby, so if they get bored with it, they can give their supplies to me.
Other things to keep an eye out for that can be found at garage sales or flea markets are: agates, geodes, polished stones (and or the tumbler for them), marbles (of all kinds), filigree (most likely it was once attached to something, or is a draw pull), and solder (just be sure it's solid core and is your usual mixes).
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Started on 9-22-98