Stowaways – Faux Stained Glass

Most recently I showed you a rather curious old  photo that I had stowed away in my attic of a child on a pony. Well I’m pulling something else out of the stowaway pile and it just so happens to be one of my first crafty projects. Some would call it faux stained glass art, but I hesitate at the word “art”, for my pieces, anyway.

I used old windows, a few glass vases and a product called Plaid Gallery Glass Window Paint.  Have you heard of it? You use a tube of the liquid lead (which is a lot like puffy paint) to create the lead lines. You let that dry completely and then you fill everything in with the window color (which is a lot like colored glue) and boom! You have faux stained glass.

I don’t consider myself an expert crafter, or an expert anything, for that matter, I just like to try different mediums. What I can say about using Gallery Glass is that it was fairly easy to use, and I was amazed at how much it COULD end up looking like real stained glass.

I say COULD because in my opinion, the examples I am about to show you DO NOT look like real stained glass. However,  with the right pattern, the right color choices and perhaps a bit of research on what real stained glass looks like, the Gallery Glass method could work to mimic stained glass at a much cheaper price,  in a lot less time and with minimal skills. (FYI, this is not a sponsered post).

The hardest part of this method is drawing the pattern on a piece of paper that you would end up taping to the back side of a piece of glass to trace out the lead lines.

To show you what stained glass most likely does NOT look like, Let’s take for example the ones I made back about 2003 and poke a little fun at them.

Ahem.  There was no research. My respect for the color wheel borders on disrespect. I made up the patterns and free-handed some of them as I went along…Eek gad!

Some of those odd shaped “flowers” are supposed to be cat tails. Have you ever seen ketchup red cat tails? Eek gad!

This one’s a little better. The pattern is called a compass rose (in case you didn’t know). Would you believe this one actually sold at one of the local shops? Eek gad!

If I were an artist, and I was into naming my art pieces, I would call this one  The Ketchup and Mustard Compass Rose. Eek gad! This is one of the stowaways still hiding in my attic.

Wait a minute… that firefly might be kind of cool… yeah, I thought so too, when I copied this design from the Gallery Glass collection, which you can find here on page 6.

You might be able to tell that these photos were from a craft show. Believe it or not, several of these pieces did sell that day or shortly there after, although I wasn’t asking much.

I didn’t stop there with the Gallery Glass either.

I went on to improve my free hand liquid lead application and actually made several slightly improved pieces that I gave away as gifts.

I just kept laying down the lead, ya know. Here are a few coneflowers done on a skinny-minny vase.

Of course the stems need work, as do the color choices but at least you can tell now that these are flowers…. right???

If I had more time, I would definitely do more faux stained glass painting. I found it a very relaxing hobby, although I’m not sure if it was because I was able to watch the designs blossom as all the Gallery Glass dried or if it was the fumes. As I mentioned, it’s a lot like glue.

Thank you for stopping by and indulging me my former craftiness.

I hope you are having a great day ~ Amy