Glass Painting

Lamp shade color before

Baking after painting!

Finished chandelier lamp shade

I had a project on my "To Do List" and I finally am 99% finished with it!

The light fixtures that came with this house when we bought it, as you can see from the sconce example on the left - they are all your normal big box variety and the shades themselves are BORING and cool white. I definitely am not a fan!

 So I got myself up to the craft store and bought 4 colors of  FolkArt craft acrylic enamels specifically for painting on glass.

 I first washed and cleaned the shade and then cleaned it again with rubbing alcohol and a cloth.

After it was dry I went to town dripping and painting. I made the clear swirls with the paint brush dipped in alcohol so that the light would shine through in areas-- this paint is opaque.

The I let the shade dry for one hour and then slipped it into a cold oven on top of a large sheet of aluminium foil. I turned the heat on to 350 degrees and as soon as the temp got up to 350 degrees I set the timer for 30 minutes. Then I turned the oven off and left the shade in the oven over night to cool down. The result is a nice hard as a rock permanent design on my lampshade. From the finished third picture you can see that I still need to paint the finial piece to complete it.

In this case I wanted to paint the outside of the shade for more of a textured effect  but you can paint the inside instead. I believe that the acrylics can be watered down slightly as well if you are looking for a more stained glass effect.  I have some more lamp shades to do and I am considering the large chandelier over the dining room table too :) So much fun and now its one of a kind!