Cards with owls

Two trendy owls "glass painted" on a piece of acetate and made into cards :)

A Christmas owl surrounded by stamped snowflakes :)

Both cards, side by side

"Glass Painted" Cards

I've recently come back to creating cards using a glass painting technique. It's exactly like painting on glass with the exception that you use an acetate sheet instead of  a real glassy surface. The use of aperture card is common in this type of cardmaking too. 

Here are the two random cards I've finished off recently - a card with three tulips and a paisley motif. I think the tulips are my favourite. I love cards with acetate - it gives you so many possibilities and the transparency and lightness of the card is appealing too, I think. It doesn't take much embellishing as the transparent motif on its own looks decorative. As for the text, you can either write your message right inside or make an insert out of a piece of paper, glue it in and write inside it so that the message is discreet and doesn't show through the painted front. I usually decide on it just before writing a card out.

The other thing I like about this type of acetate cards is that it's a pretty rare technique among the card makers and not many people actually make cards using their glass paints, which is a shame cause I'd love to see some other creations like mine :) If you, my dear reader, are the person who makes such cards, please let me know, I'd love to have a look at your glass painted creations :)

Oldies from the past: Window art (1)

Window art largely dominated the initial phase of my glass painting. It was nothing else but painting all sorts of themes with glass paints on a piece of an acetate sheet. It was a good way to practise piping curves and straight lines. After I had finished and the paint had touch-dried, I trimmed the edges of the remaining acetate and placed a vitrail acetate picture on my windows using repositionable sticky dots. No problem if you want to wash your windows :) Simple peel the picture off and replace it when you're done. Simple, isn't it?

The advantage of glass painting on an acetate over painting with real peel-off window art paints, is that your painting on an acetate will never melt on the glass even if exposed to a strong sunlight for a long time, which is exactly what happens to some peel-off window art pictures. They seem to become fragile with time and start cling to the glass so tightly that it's virtually impossible to take them off your window after a while and they tear to pieces. Cleaning windows turns into a nightmare then. Acetate will never let your glass paints come in direct contact with a glass pane hence no danger of paints melting on your windows.

I also recommend this type of glass painting to all glass painting beginners as painting on a flat surface is easier and should come first before painting on glassy curved surfaces. Simply lay down you pattern underneath an acetate, secure it with a masking tape and off you go! Having fun, piping away your relief lines :)

A clear acetate can be obtained in all well-stocked crafts shops or simply try using an OHP foil. Ultimately you can even try laminating some empty laminating pouches and then paint on them! (oh, yes, I have tried that! not ideally clear but will do if you've got no acetate at hand) Acetate comes in different formats: A3, A4, A5 as well as in different thickness.

Below, here is another batch of my acetate window art pictures. They can act as lovely suncatchers as the sun rays shine through them revealing wonderful vitrail colours - so intense and suffused. Et voile! Gorgeous play of colours and sunlight in your house. Feeling cheerful already? :D