I saw this design in a book about Zodiac signs. Leo is my birth sign
and so I thought it would be fun to try and reproduce this design on glass.
The glass is just a standard piece of picture frame glass. It measures
8" x 10" and is just over 1/16" thick (closer to 3/32"). I painted the design on the
glass using stained glass paints. I baked the glass for about 45 minutes to adhere the
paint to the glass permanently.
The black lines in the design are painted on the front of the glass and all
the colors filling in the design are painted on the back. On glass this thin, painting
on both sides seems to help give the image a more three-dimensional look.
The original frame and base (shown in the first three photos) were made of ¾"
walnut stock that I had left over from another project. The glass sat in grooves in the
top and side pieces of the frame. I cut the grooves by running the strips over a single
table saw blade at a ¼" depth. The wood was finished with two coats of clear polyurethane
protective stain.
Unfortunately, the original frame was broken when the entire piece was
accidentally knocked off of the shelf it was sitting on. The frame split at the top two
corners, which had been mitered and secured with glue only. The glass itself was only
slightly damaged: one corner broke off. I reattached the corner of the glass with super
glue and it really isn't very noticeable at all.
Although the wood pieces themselves were still intact (they broke along the
glue joints), I realized that I had poorly constructed this frame. I decided to build a
new frame (below) for this stained glass piece. This time I used ¾" thick poplar pieces
that were 1.75" wide. I used mortise and tenon joints on all four corners and the
resulting frame is very strong.
The glass still sits in very shallow grooves cut along the center of the
inside edges of all four pieces of wood. I finished the frame with one coat of red oak
stain and one coat of clear polyurethane finish.
