Have you ever been amazed at the beauty of stained glass? I know I have, in the way the sun shines through, illuminating the gorgeous colours and textures.
Last month a friend and I had the opportunity to try out stained glass, and I am even more impressed, having seen what goes into making even a small piece!
As this was heading into the holiday season, the theme was holiday ornaments. I decided I wanted to make some festive trees as my piece.
After a base template was drawn, I went about the task of choosing various pieces of glass. Initially I had chosen green pieces to use for my trees, but then I started spotting some gorgeous blues and decided to make blue trees instead!
After choosing my glass, I then went about the task of tracing each part of the template onto a piece of glass with a sharpie, scoring with a tool and breaking the glass. This step cuts the glass fairly close to your template, but for true precision, each piece then takes a visit to the ginder. This stage was more challenging and time consuming than expected, and I ended up with quite a few cuts on my hands! The grinder slowly cuts away at the edge of your glass, and over time with lots of checking, you will be left with glass that fits nicely together. See the photo below for before the grinder.
After grinding the edges, each piece of glass has foiled wrapped evenly around the edges. This foil is then covered in a liquid called flux which will help the solder adhere. Solder both holds the pieces together, and creates the shiny silver look that you get around the edges of a stained glass piece.
After soldering my two trees and connecting them and my snow piece together, I added a loop of wire to the back, cleaned everything off and it was done!
Here you can see both of our pieces together! My crafty partner added christmas presents to hers, and little holiday bows!
-Cozy Out
