My foray into stained glass

I’ve always loved stained glass. Growing up my mum used to make beautiful glass works, teaching classes in our garage for people interested in making lamps, windows, ornaments, you name it. Even though mum hasn’t made anything for a number of years now, her house (and my grandparents’ house) is still filled with beautiful antique style lamps, window panels and decorations that she made all by hand. There’s one particularly spectacular floor lamp that I’ve got my eye on… (hint hint).

I’ve wanted to try my hand at stained glass for years but given all the equipment and tools you need it always seemed too much of a hassle. Mum had always said that if I took a class and enjoyed myself she would give me all of her glass stuff that she’s got in storage. By pure coincidence my lovely friend Kate started doing a course just 5 minutes up the road from my house and she loved it so much she went back for another semester and I decided to join her. A decision that I’m so happy I made!

I have just finished my first 8 week course with the lovely and patient Leonie Le Cornu – she is so freakin’ talented and her gorgeous little studio, a renovated historic stable attached as a wing to her cute federation style cottage home,  is so warm and inviting. Every window sparkles with her crafts and walking into the studio is like stepping into a rainbow – so full of colour and shiny-ness. It’s such an inspirational little space.

As you know I love terrariums and planters so I skipped over making the introductory suncatchers and jumped straight into making a 3D pyramid planter:

My final project for the term was a bit of a brain child of mine – I just love geometric and pyramidal terrariums but I’ve always wanted one with a bit of colour and pattern and it surprised me that more like this weren’t in the market already. I came up with the design myself – this was probably the hardest part! I had lots of intricate designs in my head of flowers and leaves wrapping around each side but realistically I needed to find a pattern that was simple and keep in mind what it would look like when planted. The colours and glass couldn’t be too heavy and I still wanted enough clear glass to be able to see whatever I decided to plant in it as well. After a number of iterations I finalised my design and began painstakingly cutting and grinding 4 identical sets of glass.

I’m so happy with how the final product turned out – I’m honestly really proud of it. It’s light and simple and so pretty against the light. I picked soft colours that work really well and I’m now entirely in love with stained glass – so much so that I signed up for another class :)