Faux Glass Flowers

My friends and I stayed at our family cottage last weekend and stamped! We did manage to find time for a boat ride and when it got too hot, we jumped in the lake for a nice swim. I demoed this project shown above - Faux Glass Flowers - using the plastic packaging material my Tim Holtz supplies came in (mostly embossing folders).  I cut the flowers out using a Tim Holtz die (what else?!) and then dabbed alcohol ink in various colors on the flowers.  I then dabbed a little alcohol on the flowers to get that stained glass effect - the ink spreads away from the alcohol.  A little black acrylic paint on the edges finishes the flowers.  I used my heat gun to shape the petals. I'll finish these with a decorative brad from my stash at home.

Christmas break

The university that I work at shuts down over Christmas (yeah for me!) so I get a week to visit with friends and family if the weather is not too bad. In the past, I have gone to Arlington, Texas to see my Godchildren and to Rochester, NY to visit friends and just hang out. This time I spent a few "girly days" with my cousins down in PA near Lake Wallenpaupak. Betty and I drove down to meet up with Rosemary and Donna and with drinks in hand, this is the project that I completed!

Since I used bits of mirror, mine is not a suncatcher and with that in mind, I picked out glass that really shows well when not seen through a window.

Betty also completed a beautiful piece that you can see in her blog. Her photo does not do the piece justice! (hmmmm, you would think to take a picture with it in the window....it's a suncatcher, no?!!!) As Rosemary would say..."Betty, what were you thinking?!"

Rosemary has a business of creating stained glass pieces. Her celtic crosses are gorgeous and check out this celestial lampshade!

I finally posted my stained glass panel because a friend of Betty's saw her suncatcher and wants to do one also. This reminded me that I had something else to brag about beside paper crafts! So it looks like another "girly weekend" is in my future for more stained glass crafting!