Stained Glass

After researching what other dollhouse enthusiasts like to use for realistic stained glass, I finally decided on Gallery Glass.  It's a stained glass paint that goes on opaque and dries to a wavy, glass-like finish, and it achieves my goals of looking realistic and challenging my crafting skills. I bought a kit off of Amazon for $15 which has small pots of just about every color Plaid makes in the gallery glass paint.  These small pots go a long way when it comes to miniature work, so for just a few dollars you get a lot of color choices to play with.  This picture shows my first attempt; in retrospect I probably should have tried a less ornate design but - le sigh - I've never been known to do things the easy way! 



The painting was pretty easy but very time-consuming.  This one window probably took 4 hours, although it could have gone faster had I not tried to color both sides.  First, I used a 10/0 liner brush to lay down the lead lines with the GG leading.  Lead lines are not too difficult if you can maintain a steady hand, but the biggest help to getting the lines straight was my 5x craft magnifying light.  I let the leading dry for a couple of hours, then came back and filled in the panes with color.  I got a little overzealous with trying to mix colors together for a swirled, "old-world" stained glass look, and so some of the panes look a little thick in my opinion.  I've got some ideas for how to avoid that in the future.

Things I learned:

1. Use a craft lamp with a magnifying lense. 
2. DO the lead lines on both sides, but you don't have to color both sides of the window. The color on both sides makes the glass look extra thick - which could be useful for certain applications, but in the case of stained glass the panes are very thin.  So color one side, then use clear on the other side. The color will show through equally and trust me, you'll have a really hard time trying to figure out which side is the clear or colored one. 
3. If you make a mistake or decide you don't like the finished window, the GG paint scrapes off really easily with a finger nail
4. Use a toothpick to swirl colors together
5. The leading lines can be gently "shaped" into a straighter line by smooshing with a toothpick or the edge of a fingernail if they end up too wobbly.

All in all, I'm happy with how this window turned out. I have awhile before I plan on installing it, so I may scrape it all off and try again, but for now, I'm pretty happy with the result!