Stained Glass Windows and Mosaic

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This summer I was so lucky to get two new Grandsons. I make a stained glass stepping stone for each grandchild.

My Grandson Bentley was born in June. As soon as I heard his name I Googled the car company to see what their logo looked like. Perfect! I can work with that!

When I arrived in Arizona this Fall this was my first project.

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the pattern. The pink is adhesive vinyl that I use to make the pattern. It sticks well and allows for accurate cuts and grinding.

There were some tiny little pieces in this project. I was wearing bandages to protect my fingernails. It is very easy to grind through your fingernails without knowing it until it's too late.

Here is the finished product, excuse the background I took the picture the minute it was finished, not even dry yet.

My next Grandson was born in September. His name is Owen, I really didn't know what to do with that one so I asked his parents what they wanted.  They decided on a gorilla because he had a full head of black hair, and I think Owen means Noble Warrior.

So this one was going to stretch my artistic ability!

I used an app called Cartoon Face to make over this picture I got off the internet.

I feel like if I can get the eyes right, I can draw the viewer into my creation. This is one of the eyes I need to make.

I made a pattern and painted the face onto the stone. This is the first time I have used this method and I found it really helped when setting my pieces.

I just used the pattern as a guide at this point and went to town. This is what it looked like before grout. Many people struggle with their grout choice, not me, black almost every time.

Look what the black does to pull this picture together and to set off the colours.

Last year I made a deer window for our eldest son. He was quite particular about it as he wanted his own deer that he had hunted. He had to tell me the difference, because honestly, they all looked the same to me.

This year I told our second son that it was his turn, I gave him a choice, but I told him I was thinking of doing the Pittsburgh Penguins logo on a table. He wanted it done as a window instead so I went to work. I made a pattern using my Silhouette Cameo and had to adjust the pieces. When making a window if the pieces are too small they will end up covered in foil and the glass won't even be seen, so it was necessary to get rid of some pieces and merge them with others.

This was after day 1. The next day it took me 4 hours just to get his second glove done.

I used mirror to make his skate blades, which I thought was ingenious, of course. ;)

This is how it sits right now, almost done, I just need to add an eye and some hanging loops.

Funny story about this piece, while making it I found out that the guy working across the counter from me used to play for the Penguins in the '70's, how's that for a coincidence?

After following all those patterns I felt like doing a little freehand work. I got an owl like this one pictured at a yard sale for 50 cents. It was a little more sun bleached than this one, and his/her beak was missing, but basically the same.

I struggled with what I was going to do with it. I did some of the eye area, and the forehead and ears, and built a beak out of glass, but still didn't know where I was heading. I cut a piece out of a circle of glass because I was tucking it up under her chin, and when I saw the piece that was left behind it looked like a petal, and that's how I started making the flowers, so random!

I sort of followed the shapes on the back to add feathers.

Grouting is always a scary thing, and in this case painful! I shredded my finger tips on the sharp glass pieces sticking up.  Covering a rounded item with glass can leave glass sticking up all over. This piece will be kept away from my Grandchildren for sure!

Here she is! One of the women in my Glass Club called her Florabelle and I liked it. So that's her name. I don't usually keep track of the hours I work on my projects, but I did this time, 45 hours!

This next project is close to my heart, this is a picture of my Granddaughter Mila. I am not allowed to put pictures of this family online so I cant show you the original photo. I've been given permission to show you the original, the only problem is now you can see how far off I am :)

I used my Silhouette Cameo to make a stencil and painted the shape onto an old cupboard door that I had in the shed. I cut the face for this three times.

I could not have finished this project without the advice of my daughter, I kept her pretty busy critiquing and giving advice and even adjusting my pattern via text.

I wanted a brighter pink for the tutu but bright pink is hard to get because apparently they use real gold to make pink. I wasn't sure what I was going to use but then somebody threw out some pink scraps and I grabbed them up.

In the middle of my Mila project I stopped to make a quick stepping stone to donate to my Glass Club. The colours represent Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, and the tree represents the Tree of Life.

If you stuck it out to the end, good for you! I hope I didn't bore you too much.

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