Handmade Holiday: Faux Stained Glass Frames

My Grandma loved our foil-embossed canvases. She went on and on about how pretty they were when she saw them. So I decided we would make one for her for Christmas. And we will. But I came across this project on ADHD Crochet and thought she would like something pretty for her window as well. My other Grandma already has a few suncatchers in her window so I figured she would like one as well. Perfect. Two stained glass projects. Two daughters. One for each of them. :-)

This project was soooo easy AND cheap! I had almost all the supplies already. I just had to go and buy frames at the Dollar store. I also bought Gorilla Glue (for $4) to glue the glass to the frame. So all in all, each stained glass frame ended up costing me an average of $3.

Supplies needed:
--Dollar Store frame
--clear Elmer's glue (I used Discount School Supply Colorations clear glue)
--Acrylic Paint
--white Elmer's glue
--printable page
--Gorilla Glue
--Clear Acrylic Gloss Coat

I started by printing off a couple different abstract-design printables. I let the girls pick which image they wanted to do.

Take the glass out of the frame and place it over the printable. We taped it down so it wouldn't move around. Mix some clear glue with a few drops of acrylic paint. You really don't need much paint at all. If the color is still too light for you, add some more paint. We used disposable muffin tins I had laying around.

We found it worked better to sort of dab the paint mixture on instead of brushing it. We also found that the mixture spread as it dried. Some of the colors mixed together (this can be a cool effect if you want to use it). You can also combat the colors mixing together by painting on the black leading lines first, letting it dry, and then using the paint mixture. The black lines will keep the paint from running together. I don't know why I decided to do it the way we did. I'm sure I had a reason. It just seemed to make sense for us to do it this way. I think I didn't want to restrict them with my own lines. I wanted my lines to follow their work instead.

We started this project after school one day. They get tired out easily so they worked on it over the week. I simply put a damp paper towel over the top of each of their trays and that kept the paint mixture from drying out. I re-wet the paper towel once or twice a day. BUT, this actually helped us out!

**Helpful hint** When we let the mixture sit more than a day, it thickened up a bit and didn't spread out quite as much as the initial day they used it. It might be beneficial to mix up the paint the day before and let it sit.

 This is my first grader's finished and sitting on our light table.

Once they finished painting the colors, I let it dry for a day. I used a small razor blade to clean up a few of the paint lines. I mixed a bit of black paint into a white Elmer's glue and put it into a fine tip bottle like this one. I put the project on the light table and painted black lines on the opposite side of the glass from the paint. When the whole thing dried I sprayed a light mist of acrylic gloss coat on the paint side to seal the paint. You can do this before you put the black lines on, I just forgot. :-)

Here's what my third grader's looked like before I put the black lines on. It looks cool like this too. :-)

And here they are in the frames in a window. I used Gorilla Glue on the back to adhere the glass to the frame. You do have to be careful though. The Gorilla Glue expands. You want to make sure you can't see it on the glass.

I love how they both turned out!! And overall, this was so easy! Just a bit of a process and you have to make sure you give yourself enough time to finish it and have it dry. It looks great with light shining through it and even without light shining through. Hopefully the girls' Great-Grandmas will love them!