It was my birthday recently and my boyfriend has got into a habit of buying me an ‘experience’ rather than ‘stuff’. This year, he arranged for me to go on a stained glass class, which I was very excited about because I LOVE stained glass, especially 1920’s-1940’s door and window panels (like the 1920’s one above that I bought for £18 in Southwold at a cute little antiques shop). My mum’s best friend, Jo, makes stained glass and I remember as a child seeing her creating and thinking it was all quite magical.
I went along to the class at Crafts Bee, which is a relatively new venture run by Karen. They teach lots of different crafts from stained glass to sewing and are based in South East London and Kent. I did the copper foil stained glass class, which is suitable for beginners and there were six of us in the class, so we got lots of individual attention.
I have never done any stained glass and I assumed that there would be no way of creating anything special by the end of the class, but I was wrong. In the six hours that I was there I was able to quickly learn the cutting glass technique, cut glass to complete a design and then learned how to copper foil and solder the design. By the end of the class I had made a beautiful panel that is now proudly hanging on my sitting room window.
This is how it happened…
Deciding the colours for the design.
Cutting the glass to fit the design.
Copper foiling each piece of glass.
Soldering the glass together – I was rubbish at this bit!
The finished piece. I love it.
I’m now thinking about buying some equipment so I can do it at home. I would really, really love to develop this craft and one day create a beautiful art deco style window panel.
Katy x
Ooh love this peek into the class! When I learnt fused glass in May it made me see glass completely differently. Doesn’t it feel cool cutting it?
I say buy those tools and go for it! Would love to see what you make.
Yes, loved cutting the glass – so much easier than I thought it would be (once I started holding the cutting tool like a pen rather than a rotary cutter!). Maybe I’ll put a stained glass starter kit on my xmas list…
Beautiful! I would love to have a go at this sometime. I look forward to seeing what else you make (and let’s face it, the tools would make a lovely Christmas present from your boyfriend!)
Thanks Louise! Maybe you should do the class as a Xmas present and I should get the tools for mine! Sounds good to me 😉
Even better – their next class is on 29th November which just happens to be my birthday, so it’s a present from my husband, and will hopefully be the first thing I make for our new home! Wouldn’t have found the workshop without your blog 🙂