The Peculiar Crafter: From the Vault: Tissue Paper Stained Glass

A few years ago I decided to make my own window treatments. I lieu of the usual curtains or blinds, I utilized a technique I worked on for a sculpture a few years prior- a stained glass effect made by layering different colors of tissue paper. To be honest, it took a while. But, unlike now, I had the NHL to keep me entertained while I was working.

When I was working on this I had no intentions of ever posting it to a blog so there are no pictures of early steps. But, trust me, there's some prep work that should not be skipped. Make sure the window are measured and that your sketches are the right proportion. I happened to have large rolls of thick paper, so I used those to created a full scale drawing that would help me keep pieces organized and provide something for me to trace if I had a tricky shape to do. When it was all over, I had these:


Taken from outside

Not too shabby, right? Here's the nitty gritty on how to do it.
You'll need: several sheets of tissue paper in the color families you intend to use
Mod Podge ( I went through about 3 or 4 large jars)
Parchment paper
Scissors
Black electrical tape
**I worked on cookie sheets so I could move them to different locations for working or drying**

For the color sheets, tear tissue paper into smaller square-ish shapes, a few inches in size, and tack them to the parchment paper with the Mod Podge. After a layer of color I coated the whole thing with Mod Podge and then added another layer. I didn't stick with a single shade- when I made green "stained glass" I used every shade of green that came in the pack. I was also fairly haphazard with the layering so that I wouldn't end up a grid look. After I finished around 4 layers of tissue paper, generously coated with Mod Podge, I set the cookie sheet aside for a few hours of drying. Once dry, it's fairly easy to peel the color sheet off the parchment, though a few rogue squares may need to be reattached.

Using the full scale drawing as a guide, I cut the various colors into the correct shapes and then set them on the drawing... mostly so I could see what the picture was looking like as I made progress. The "lead" in the project is black electrical tape. Easy to find and fairly cheap, it also happens to be pretty flexible, so I could use it in curves without much hassle. It's important to remember, though, to do both sides of the design with tape. This is what it all looked like complete-