Glass Art Tutorials

[Stephanie]

[Stephanie]

A while back someone asked if I could post a tutorial on how I make my glass art, so here it is! Please forgive the pictures, my batteries were fast fading. 🙂

Here’s what you will need:
– 2 pieces of glass that are the same size. I buy Memory Glass from Inksentials, 1 1/2 inches x 1 1/2 inches.

– Soldering tape. I got mine at a local stained glass store. It’s the tape you use when soldering, and you can find it online. My craft stores don’t carry it. It comes in brass, copper and a silver color (aluminum or tin, I’m not sure which). They come in varying sizes. The copper I have pictured, I cut in half so it makes a thinner ‘frame’ around the piece.

– Wire. I like 20 gauge myself. It’s thin enough not to overwhelm the piece, but thick enough to be sturdy.

– Two papers (or one double-sided paper) to put between the glass. Here I have a print of one of my pieces, and some craft paper, cut to size.

Step 1:
Place the papers between two of the pieces of glass. Make sure they’re both facing the right way – you don’t want to tape it and find that one of them is upside down! 🙂

Step 2:
Wrap the tape around the edges of the glass. I peel a bit of the backing off the tape, hold it on the table, and place the piece on it like so. Then it’s a two-handed job to wrap and press, being careful to keep the glass as centered on the tape as possible.

Your piece will look like this:

Step 3:
Fold the tape down around the edges. I fold it in along the sides, then squish it against the table to get the corners. There are ways you can do it with more finesse (such as using a bone folder), but I’m too lazy. 😀 It’ll then look like this:

Step 4:
Take some of your wire and cut it from the spool. I always err on the side of extra, because I don’t want to run out of wire half way through the wrapping. Make a loop at one end by bending the wire, and wrapping the short end around the long one. Clip the excess wire from the short end, or you can twist it into any decoration you’d like.

Step 5:
Place the wire behind the piece. I always bend the wire to the right, directly beneath the loop, and wrap the corners in that direction. You can wrap it however you’d like. As long as the piece doesn’t fall out of the wire, and you like the way it looks, you’ve wrapped it successfully. 😀

And that’s it! You might notice some spots that showed up on the finished piece – for reasons unknown to me, my print paper makes those odd gray marks when there is a piece of textured paper behind them, so unfortunately I had to take this piece apart and fiddle with the background paper. 😀

There are more on my art website, in the jewelry section, here: http://ssedan.com/art.htm

I also do painted glass, which I can do a tutorial of if people are interested. 😀

Enjoy!

[Lokie]

Thank you for taking the time to do that. A tutorial for painted glass would be swell but only if it’s not too much trouble 🙂

<–I have an egg!

[Stephanie]

Lokie wrote:

Thank you for taking the time to do that. A tutorial for painted glass would be swell but only if it’s not too much trouble 🙂

<–I have an egg!

Thanks! No, it’s not trouble at all. It just takes a while because the glass needs time to dry. I’m starting another piece now, actually…
It’s really easy, and fun. 😀

[Stephanie]

Alright, here’s the painted glass tutorial. This is how I paint glass, but it’s obviously not the only way. Again, forgive the pictures. My batteries are officially drained. 😀

Step 1:
You need to start with glass. I use scrap glass from the local stained-glass store. I then smash it on my porch, which is quite therapeutic. It leaves me with all sorts of unique shapes to work with. I break off some of the sharper edges, and then set to work.

Step 2:
Paint the smooth side of the glass, if it’s textured. Here’s the sort of thing I do. I paint black lines and swirls in first.

Step 3:
After some drying time, I then fill in the empty spaces with random colors of my choice.

Step 4:
Allow this to dry completely, then paint over with black. I’ve tried white also, but don’t like the look of it. So, start painting it like this, and cover the entire back.

Step 5:
Apply varnish.

Step 6:
Wrap in tape and wire, and you’re done! I like the look of this piece because I used thinner wire. I was out of silver 20 gauge, so I had to use the thin stuff, and make lots of wraps. I really like the way it turned out. I also reinforced it with crafting cement.

It’s that easy! 😀

[Jasmine]

That’s really neat. I might have to try some. Thanks Steph. 🙂

[Lokie]

Thanks, Stephanie, I’ll have to try that sometime 🙂

[wolflodge100]

Thanks! I think I will try the painted glass. 😀

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