Monday, November 17, 2008

"Stained Glass" Leaves Project











I just love stained glass in any form or manner...and this is one of those "any forms or manners." This is not an original thought (thank you, Miriam, for your original craft idea that I could expand on and other tips) but quite lovely, I think. These "stained glass" leaves are made from watered down glue and tissue paper. I was looking for a unique, inexpensive way to send Thanksgiving wishes to relatives, and thought this would be a perfect idea to do with the kids. Here are the instructions:
1) Cut up tissue paper in the colors you wish.
2) Spread school glue around on tinfoil or a plastic base that glue won't stick to then mix in some water so that the tissue paper stays well saturated (squirt with extra water during the process if needed).
3) Place tissue paper on glue mixture at random or in pictures (ahhh, Notre Dame!) if you'd like. I layered mine down perhaps a little too much and very randomly. You could probably be more precise and lay just one or two layers of tissue down, overlapping to leave no holes once dry.
4) Let dry about two days.
5) Cut into leaf shapes (be careful, it rips easily).

You could really make some pretty "stained glass" projects like blue, white, purple and silver snowflakes for winter; pink and red hearts for Valentines' Day; multicolored flowers, etc. I used some gold tissue for extra sparkle. One could probably add some strips of metallic foil for even MORE sparkle (can a person really have ENOUGH sparkle??).

3 comments:

Sharon's Cottage Quilts said...

Wow! Thanks so much for your generous tutorial! I love those leaves you made, they are just incredible!! Blessings~Sharon

Kathy said...

Beautiful leaves...
Michele~
I am happy to tell you that I have picked your name for the give-away for my blog. Grand prize goes to you. Please email me with your address and I will have your goodies out to you. Thanks for playing along...
~xx~
Kathy

luckeelady said...

this is such a great idea... i might just have to do this with my daughter... or even let my cousin know about this, she is a teach.... maybe she can make stained glass christmas trees or ornaments :)