Faux Stained Glass

Stained glass is a beautiful thing and I am lucky enough to have a front door that's surrounded by it! Unfortunately that front door is 151 years old and the stained glass is starting to show it's age. Eventually we will have to replace it with something else and gone will be my beautiful stained glass...sniff, sniff.

Goodness, enough of that! Anyway, my beautiful stained glass has inspired me to try to recreate this look on a dime...or um, $8.86 which was what it cost to buy a stained glass paint set on Amazon.com! I tried looking for this stuff at my local craft store and they didn't carry it, so I found buying it online my best bet.

Included in this set is liquid leading, that I found pretty easy to use if you have a steady hand- which I sometimes don't, especially before lunch!!! I'm a shaker when I'm hungry. Also in the box were small amounts of transparent paint to create a colored glass look.

So, I cracked open my stained glass kit and got right to work. Unfortunately the kit did not come with directions, which I found a little disappointing, but never one to be held back by lack of know-how, I just winged it!

It actually was quite easy to figure out. Here, I'll let you see the pictures, they explain things waaaaay better than I!

Like I said before, this set does not come with a template or designs, so you have to do it yourself. So, first thing I did was find a nice stencil and traced that design on a white piece of paper.  

I used the stencil to fill the entire area of the glass plate.

You also have to keep in mind that to look like real stained glass you have to create areas of lead framed color. In other words, all of your lines must be joined together and connect to the frame, not free floating.

With connected lines

Before 

When the design is complete, it's time to prepare the glass for the lead. Do this by cleaning it with alcohol.

When the surface is clean it's time to trace the design onto your glass with the liquid lead.

The liquid leading needs 8 hours to dry, so I left the plate dry over night.

With the glass dry, it's time to apply the paint.

Here are all the paint colors that come with the set. As you can see there is a very small amount of each color. This set is good for maybe two smaller projects. No need to worry though! Any transparent paint will do! The real gold in this set is the liquid leading!!

The plastic tool they provide in the set was very useful. One end is spoon shaped to  scoop and pour the paint .

The other end of the tool is long and narrow to spread the paint into tight spaces.

The paint, just like the leading needs time to dry 8 hours at least and 7 days to cure. I did not wait the 7 days however I did let this dry another night.

I used a very cheap plastic frame to complete the look. The key here is light. You want a very light weight plastic frame to hang this project.

I hot glued the glass right into the frame.

I ripped the velvet cover off the back of the frame. I wanted the back to look as finished as the front.

These nasty little staples were very difficult to remove, not to mention dangerous.

Bandaged finger from removal accident!

My quick fix- cover it with ribbon!!!

Here I hot glued the ribbon all the way around the frame. This worked well because the ribbon can be used to hang the frame.

Perfectly hangs from the window lock.
No windows were harmed in the making of this project!

 My over-all impression of the kit was positive. It's a good starter though and not something you would say cover an entire window with. The kit with the liquid leading and the tool included is really nice to have, so I'm glad I bought this starter. I think that I will go out to the craft store though and get the transparent paint colors!

If your confident and would like to cover a whole window just get the liquid leading
and go to town!!

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