Art Of Stain Glass

Our first stained glass project looked to be pretty simple at first, but after my husband and I started we quickly realized it was not going to be as easy as it looked.

First we had to pick something we were going to make. The teacher told us the less pieces you have the easier the project would be, so we chose a project that only had five pieces. We picked a tulip, the patterns are just like pictures from a coloring book, my husband was probably hoping for something other than a flower, but he is such an easy fellow he just chose the tulip with me.

Now that we have finally made a decision its time to cut the pattern out, you need two or three copies, one for your cut pieces to be placed on and one you can cut, the cut pieces will be used to glue to glass you are going to be cutting. After all the pieces were cut out we then had to choose our glass colors. So many choices of glass to choose, I never would have thought all those decisions would be required, like color, texture, with a pattern in the glass, solids, swirled of course that took a bit of time especially to me, I love all glass.  We final chose our colors, which were purple for the flower and of course green for the leaves and we were ready to start.The next step is to glue the pattern pieces you cut out onto the piece of glass, next we cut the glass, looked easy when the teacher did it, but I broke so many pieces its a wonder she didn’t charge me extra. Finally we get our little pieces cut and then we use the grinder to smooth all of the edges, being careful not to cut ourselves, so they will easily fit into the framed area.

After all the cutting and grinding is finished all the glass must be cleaned. Now its time to apply the copper foil which was the easy part, make sure all edges are flattened and stuck really good. After all the pieces are foiled and placed in the frame area here comes the fun part. After you Flux all the edges you tack the egdes with solder for the glass to be secure.

Soldering was very hard for me because I want every line to be perfect, but I guess you could say that takes a lot of practice. After the soldering was complete we installed a little ring on the top so we could put a little suction cup hook on it to hang in the window. We were amazed when we finished, It was very exciting for us to complete that in 1 day. Even my husband was surprised about how it was enjoyable and not extremely difficult.