Friday 19 April 2019

Glass painting revisited - a great activity for kids

Last week the grandchildren loved their experiments with shrink plastic, so when they came over this week, and once again it rained so we needed an indoor activity, I took them to The Range and we bought a pack of glass paints and outliner.

Now I used to be very keen on glass painting about 25 years ago, and much of it I did on acetate to make into cards, so although my paints and outliners were long since used up, I still had all the brushes and a large cardboard folder full of design templates to trace, so we had plenty of ideas to work with.

First of all, I showed them how to use the outliner, and got them to choose and trace designs on to sheets of acetate, while I set to to reclaim the acetate packaging so we had more to work with - it would be a pity to throw away packaging that could be used with its contents! We all found the outliner to be rather thick, coarse and hard to handle. I think it may be designed for use on large areas of glass rather than small designs, so now I have the paints and have rekindled my interest, I think I'll buy the finer outliner I'm more used to. 

Once the outline was dry - which took about 2 hours and not the 72 hours stated on the pack - we set to to paint our designs. 6 year old Holly is a very impatient girl  yet she had chosen a relatively complex design and was totally absorbed in it!

Here is our finished work:

Holly with her butterfly design


Lara with her sunshine design


and finally my own, made using the repurposed packaging and then  cut out and mounted on a card using spray adhesive


No, you don't get a photo of me holding mine against a window!

I am sharing this with Jingle Belles where it is their annual Earth Day Recycling challenge

6 comments:

Sherri Thacker said...

WOW. That's really neat! They all came out so nice!

Dawn Phillips said...

So lovely. What a fab idea. Love Dawn x

Dotty Jo said...

What a lovely activity! Jo x

Darnell said...

How incredibly cool is this! Will you be my grandma, Jane?! I enjoyed this so much! Please thank your pretty little model for me! Happy Easter! Hugs, Darnell

SmilynStef said...

Aren't you a clever grandma ... love those holly leaves ... so glad you're celebrating EARTH day with us at Jingle Belles.

lauren bergold said...

what amazing and beautiful "glass" paintings and a fab "rescue" of acetate packaging! (it's a pity we didn't get a third pic of you with your card tho!) :) so pleased you could celebrate earth day with us at JINGLE BELLES! ♥