Make a stained glass mosaic portrait from a photograph.

Step 5 Gather your palette

Ok, now you're ready to start the fun/tedious part. Gather up the colored glass you want to use. Craft shops or specialty glass shops should have an ok selection, or you can order it online. Stay away from textured glass and cathedral (see-through or transparent) and streaky (partially transparent) glass and try to stick to smooth opaque glass, sometimes also referred to as opal or opalescent.

Once you have your glass, you need to cut it into tiles. I went with random shapes, but if you wanted you could do little squares or rectangles. I like the organic, angular look I get with my method, tho. Use your glass cutter to cut strips out. Make varying widths or if you feel comfortable with the cutter, do curvy strips so you can get lots of different widths. Once more, use your running pliers to break off the strips (you will need the pliers this time). If the strips are too thin you can try to break them with breaker/grozer pliers, but that can turn nasty quick.

Using your mosaic nippers (don't use tile nippers as they will crush the glass) chip pieces off of the strip into a little bowl or cup. You can angle the wheels differently to produce different shapes. You can just use your glass cutter to make the shapes too, but talk about a timekiller... Just get the glass nippers. They usually have little wheels on them to break the glass between them using pressure. You will be getting some hand exercise, be careful if you have carpal tunnel issues.