Glass Painting your Birthday Cards - A Learners Guide

In this guide to glass-painting your birthday cards, you will find out all you need to know to begin in this trendy craft.

Two variations of contrastive glass painting are in existence today - water-based and non-water-based. Both of them have a wide range of colours and are mixable within their classes.

When applying an outline, you can choose one of three different ways whilst crafting glass painted birthday cards:

Outline Stickers - Novices to glass painting should find these perfect and they are best used on flat, level surfaces. Starting in the corner, slowly peel up the sticker, taking care not to stretch or distort it and apply it to the clean glass surface area of your birthday cards.

Glass paint outliner - These are applied by squeezing the outliner from a tube to provide a fine outline. They come in a choice of colours. They are able to be used as an outline for your design before paint is applied or piped over a pre-painted surface as fine detailing.

Leading Tape - Doors and windows usually need this type of outliner.

Technique

Before you commence painting, ensure that there are no specs of dust and grease on the glass area of the birthday cards, to ensure good adherence. Use a solvent, such as white-spirit or methylated spirit.

Because a birthday card has a flat surface, designs are usually traced straight through. It is easier to work on a flat surface, so try to lay the birthday card of a horizontal surface.

To create a straight line with a glass paint outliner touch the nozzle onto a glass surface then applying a gentle steady pressure, lift the nozzle from the surface and stretch out the outliner along in a straight line. Tap the nozzle down on the glass surface at the last part of your line.

Whilst filling in areas in between outlines on the glass section of your birthday cards with a paint brush, apply paint liberally by peddling the paint or using a pipette. This is able to provide a smooth, stained-glass look. To develop a lighter colour of paint, weaken with water for the water-based paints or gloss varnish for the non-water based paints.

Paint should always be poured into a palette as opposed to straight from the jar. This prevents colours turning dirty or diluted. Glass paint can also be applied using a sponge, but birthday cards often have smaller areas, whereas this technique is in general, best for wider areas.

To finish, a coat of varnish can be a used to protect solvent based paints, glass paint varnish comes in either a matt or gloss finish. Gloss finish tends to be most popular for birthday cards, however some people might be looking for something exclusive. Gloss varnish is sometimes also used as a colourless thinner, which will obtain pastel shades, while keeping the colour depth and any transparent effects. The matt varnish offers a finish in the form of frosted glass. To add finishing touches to a project, while the paint is still wet, you can use tweezers to add beads or sequins. The wet paint is a good substitute for glue. Glitter can also be added by sprinkling it on the wet paint to give your birthday cards that special bit of glisten.

Memo: When adopting these methods in conditions other than for your birthday cards, glass paint is supposed to be applied merely for decorative items, the colors usually are not dishwasher proof. It can, nevertheless be shined by using a damp flannel.