Have a look at this Dollar Store find. You are getting 4 cookie cutters for $ 1. And one of them is a heart. They are plastic, but you don’t need to fire them. All you fire is our new glass frit. Yes, Wissmach Glass is now making frit. Ask your favorite store about it.
Set your cookie cutter shape on a kiln shelf covered with a piece of Papyros Paper. Now cut a strip of Papyros Paper about 1/2″ wide and a little longer than you would need to go around the inside of the heart once. It is ok if it overlaps. You can secure to itself with a piece of scotch tape.
For this heart I used some coarse clear 96 Wissmach Frit as a base layer and then added the medium size red frit 96-41 all the way up to the rim of the paper.
Since I did not want to loose the heart definition I set a few small pieces of Kaiser Lee Board in strategically important places.
You can Fire up your kiln as fast as possible. I took mine to 1420°F for 10 minutes and then I annealed the glass at 900°F for 45 minutes. The picture above shows the set up after firing. The Papyros Paper die not fall over and kept the heart nicely shaped. I did not need to grind and polish this miniature casting.
Enjoy your heart
Petra Kaiser