Introduction: Stained Glass Feather

About: I am a speech-language pathologist by day and a quilter, crafter, and novice seamstress by night. I live with two furry cats and one furry dude.

This project combines two of my favorite things, glass and crystals. I got this gorgeous geode from one of my favorite shops (The Purple Moon in Lava Idaho) and knew I needed to do something special with it. This project worked up really quickly and was so fun to make.

Step 1: Sketch Up Your Feather

Lay your crystal on a piece of paper and design a feather around it. I went pretty simple with this design, but you could get as intricate as you want. The geode I found looked like it would fit nicely as the bottom of the feather, get creative and see where your crystal will fit best. Next, cut out all the pattern pieces. Sometimes I number the pieces of my patterns, but since this feather is so simple I didn't think it was necessary.

Step 2: Cut Your Glass

This is one of my favorite steps of every project because I get to look at all of my glass and decide which colors and textures of glass will look good together. After you have decided what pieces of glass you want to use, glue your pattern pieces on to the glass. I like to use a glue stick to adhere my patterns onto the glass, but you could also just trace the pattern directly onto the glass with a fine tipped sharpie.

To cut your glass you will need a glass scoring tool and some cutting oil. You can find these items for a great price on Amazon, or if you have a Hobby Lobby nearby you can find stained glass supplies there (and use a 40% off coupon).

Step 3: Foil Your Glass

Next, you need to apply your copper foil to each piece of glass and to the geode. At this point you will want to decide what color you will want your solder lines to end up. I thought copper would look pretty on this feather, so I chose copper foil with copper adhesive. You could leave your solder lines silver or you could apply a black patina and end up with black solder lines. You can find copper foil with black and silver adhesive as well.

Place the glass right in the middle of your copper foil and apply it all the way around the piece of glass and then fold the excess foil onto the sides of the glass. You will then want to burnish the foil with a fid.

Step 4: Solder Your Glass

Next, lay all your feather pieces back together on a heat resistant surface. Apply flux to all of the copper foil. Flux helps the solder to move smoothly to create nice, clean solder lines. I like to use 60/40 solder. There are many videos on youtube that teach how to solder (which is where I learned how to do it).

After I finished soldering the feather pieces together, I used copper patina to create copper solder lines. I learned a few tricks to help make the patina work best. I scrub my stained glass piece with a copper scrubber (the kind you use for cleaning dishes) and then clean the piece with windex. I poured the patina into a spray bottle and squirted the piece with the patina. I used a toothbrush to really work the patina into the solder lines. Once the piece has achieved the color I am looking for I wash it off in the sink. You can then polish the piece with turtle wax or with stained glass polish.

Attach some twine or chain, hang your feather in a window, and enjoy your beautiful piece of artwork!

Glass Challenge 2017

Participated in the
Glass Challenge 2017