🔥 The Magic of Frit: How Glass Grain Size Transforms Art
Let’s talk frit. Glass comes in colorful grains called frit, and the size of those grains totally changes how they look—and how you can use them. Here’s a quick guide to the four main frit sizes, plus how I use each in my own work.
🔥 Powder – Ultra Fine
Powdered frit is as fine as flour. It creates smooth, even color when fired and blends beautifully, making it perfect for shading, stencils, and subtle details. Since it's so fine, it gets airborne easily—so wearing a mask is a must!
✨ Where I Use It: I use powder for freeze-and-fuse techniques and to reduce bubbles between layers of sheet glass in my giftware.
🔥 Fine – Like Grains of Sugar or Salt
Fine frit feels like salt or granulated sugar and fuses with a soft, speckled look. It’s fantastic for shading, gradients, and adding a little texture without going bold.
✨ Where I Use It: It’s the snowy sky background in my snow globe ornaments—soft, wintery, and just a little dreamy.
🔥 Medium – Think Sand
Medium frit has the texture of coarse sand. When fired at lower temps, it can keep some texture. Perfect when you want a more tactile finish or some gritty character.
✨ Where I Use It: I use medium frit for strong color with texture—like creating snowy details in some of my ornaments.
🔥 Coarse – Small Pebbles
Coarse frit is made of tiny glass pebbles and often keeps its chunky, organic feel after firing. It’s great for bold, textured effects and for playing with color reactions between different types of glass.
✨ Where I Use It: I love using coarse frit to add bold texture in my fused glass votives—and to make small, dot accents in other pieces
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💡 DIY Frit? Yep, it’s a thing.
Some folks make their own by heating glass and then plunging it into water while it’s still hot. The glass crackles into random chunks, which you can dry out and sift by size. Others use a frit press to crush their scrap pieces. Personally, I prefer to skip the mess and just buy mine in the sizes I need—less mess, more time for creating. 😄