Easy Glass-Bottom Clay/Ceramic Piece

This is a simple technique.  Just make your piece out of clay, fire, stick glass in the bottom and fire again.

- Clay
- Glaze (optional)
- Kiln
- Glass: Broken shards of different colored glass.  Sea glass works best (you can buy this cheaply at craft stores or collect it yourself).  Mosaic glass sometimes melts differently so I would suggest you combine it with regular glass.
- You could also use a premade pottery piece if you want to (ex. at a paint-your-own pottery place)

Make your clay piece and do the initial firing.  The glass gets soft and molds together but does not completely liquify, so only a small lip is necessary.  Bowls work best but I have made coasters with a 1/8 inch lip and there was not spillage.

Glaze the piece as desired.  Keep in mind that whatever color you choose to put at the bottom of your piece will show through the light-colored glass.  You do not need to put glaze in the bottom if you do not want to.  Lay the glass out in the bottom, it is okay to have gaps.  Fire the piece and the glass will melt slightly and fuse together.  The glass surface hardens smooth. 

The photo of the circular piece is blue glaze with sea glass.  The rectangular piece has a green glazed bottom with a mix of sea glass and mosaic glass.  The glass square has a clay base with a 1/8 inch lip to prevent the sea/mosaic glass from spilling off the piece during firing.

Note: I have only tried this with low fire glazes, if you try with high fire do it in a bowl in case the glass liquifies.  This is NOT food safe.