diy stained glass

for christmas, my friend liz gave me the gift of crafting time together, so yesterday we met up for brunch (minus the mimosas) and tried our hands at stained glass art. it's harder than you'd think, if you're a perfectionist, but the good news is that it's reallllly easy to fix your mistakes (unless you don't make mistakes? i don't know your life.) there's also a 2 different ways you can do this diy!



what you need

-- paint (we used tempera paint, because that's what we had on hand. not sure if fancy acrylic would work!)
--black paint!
-- two bottles of elmer's (a.k.a. washable) glue
-- dollar-store frames with glass (not plastic) in them
-- paint brushes and wooden skewers (or something else with a fine point)


what to do: method 1 (takes more time) 

-- mix black paint into one of the two bottles of glue. add a whole bunch of it, and stir it around with a skewer. this is the bottle you'll use for outlining.

-- draw the outline of your design on your frame. i was looking at this pin on pinterest for inspiration for my first frame!

-- while you wait for the black outline to dry (which takes a while if you drew thick lines), start to mix your other colors on a palette (for us that was a piece of cardboard). add in a yolo-amount of glue to each squirt of paint on your palette. (is my precision overwhelming? you know how i do recipes, so........are you surprised?)

-- carefully fill in each section with the paint-glue mix from your palette. i started with a brush, and then filled in the corners with a skewer. if you get your color on your perfectly drawn, crisp black lines--fear not! you can paint over the black lines at the end.

-- let the colored-in sections dry, and (if necessary), use a skewer to dab black glue-paint over the parts your color got out of hand. this made my lines extra fresh! :)





what to do: method 2 (takes less time)

(if you've got less time or don't think your fine motor skills are up for the challenge of painting in small sections, use this method. see my arrow frame.)

-- like the first method, mix black paint into one of the two bottles of glue. add a whole bunch of it, and stir it around with a skewer.

-- mix a color and a bunch of glue together on your palette, and use your brush to sweep it on the glass. broad brushstrokes are good!

-- once the brushed-on dries, draw a design with the black-paint-added glue bottle. fix any uneven lines with the skewer. and that's it! this method looks less like stained glass, but it can still turn out well! :)



*you can also flip over your glass if you don't want the chunky paint globs to show. the picture above is with the glass flipped over. see how smooth it looks?!



**THE GOOD NEWS FOR THOSE OF US HUNG UP ON MISTAKES: if all else fails, run your glass under warm water and wash the glue-paint off. voila! new canvas. ("if at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence you ever tried." that's how the saying goes, right?)

have you ever tried painting on glass? what designs would you start with? 

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