Craft Gossip

Independent craft blog since 2007

Turbo Top – Fun with Vitrigraph…Fast!!

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Here’s the first of many products that need to be talked about from my Las Vegas adventure. It’s the Turbo Top and the Turbo Lift by Innovative Glass Solutions. Have you tried vitrigraph? You pull hot glass from the bottom of a suspended kiln to make swirly shapes and canes and twists that are amazing additions to fufsed pieces but also make great jewelry items on their own. Larr Cunningham of Innovative Glass Solutions has created both the Turbo Top and the Turbo Lift to help make the vitrigraph experience that much better.

The Turbo Lift allows you to mount your kiln and be able to adjust the height of it to 5 vertical positions. So cool. It allows a vertical range of 28″ in 5 pre-set increments. And it comes preassembled so you can easily attach it to your kiln. The Turbo Top heats your kiln in half the time. This makes getting to your vitrigraph good times that much faster. And it fits most table top kilns. So if you’re ready to try it out, play with vitrigraph, you need these fabulous tools. And as a bit of a disclaimer, I’ve worked with Larr and Leigh Adams teaching Extreme Vitrigraph, which adds torchwork to the party, and these are essential add ons to your vitrigraph experience! Pull some hot glass!! You can currently find these at Pacific Art Glass…

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Try This Fun Bake Off Drawing Challenge with a Group of Kids

My daughter is 16 and one of her favorite things to do on school breaks is watch The Great British Bake Off. It’s such a soothing show, as well as being creative and fun, and it’s low stakes enough that it isn’t stressful, which is just the thing you need when you’re on a break from school. 

If you don’t have an oven or want to do your own real Bake Off challenges, this baking show inspired drawing challenge from Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls is a great alternative. This works best if you have a group of kids to play, but you could also do it along with a child at home. 

The post includes a bunch of different “baking” challenges for kids to draw. As an example: “Draw a dozen delicious doughnuts! Be sure to include at least two different flavors of icing. Challenge yourself to think of as many creative toppings as you can.” 

Give them a set amount of time (maybe 10-15 minutes) to draw their creations based on the prompt. Then have each child present their creation, explaining what they chose to draw and why (and what the different flavors are if it’s not obvious). 

There doesn’t have to be a winner, but kids can vote on their favorites or you can “award” things like most colorful, tallest creation, etc. Sarah suggests if doing this with little kids you can come up with an award for everyone, but there need not be prizes involved. 

With older kids you might do a couple of rounds and pick winners so that you can have a “star baker” just like in the show. 

This is a game that would be a lot of fun for kids of different ages, and you can do it multiple times with the different prompts. 

Get all the details and the challenge cards from Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls. 

[Photo: Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls]