February 16, 2020

DIY Faux Stained Glass Bottles

Every year I try to find that special project to make for Christmas gifts for a group of my special friends. This year I found a faux stained glass dragonfly bottle on Pinterest and instantly knew it was this years project. It is believed that dragonflies can travel between dimensions, and are messengers of dreams and illusions.

Winters are long in the northeast and adding stained glass or faux stained glass items in my windows add color and brightens any room (and my day).

Upcycling wine bottles, old vases, oil bottles or jars into faux stained glass is very easy and few supplies are needed. I usually drill holes in wine bottles to add lights, but they now make plastic corks with battery operated lights attached, perfect!! These lights can be found on Amazon and are very affordable.

What you will need:

Clean Glass Bottle (or any clean glass container)
Small Paintbrush
Black Sharpie Marker, fine point
Gallery Glass Window Color (assorted colors)
Beads or gems (I like assorted sizes)
Battery operated 15 ct cork lights
Super glue
Glitter Glue (optional)

Let’s get started:

Clean your glass bottle and let it dry completely.
Arrange your beads or gems in order of size and glue on the bottle, using super glue, or any quick drying glue. Bottles are round and beads will slide easily, so do a small section at a time. Be creative, and leave enough space for the dragonfly wings to be drawn.
When glue is dry, draw your dragonfly wings with a permanent marker, I use the Sharpie brand, fine point.
Using your Gallery Glass, color of choice, paint on a thin coat to the wings, staying in the lines. When the Gallery Glass dries, approximately 2 hours, you can add a second coat for a deeper color, or add a darker shade at the base of the wings, to add dimension.
When the Gallery Glass on the wings is dry, use another color for the background. I used frosted white and blotted on with a small brush, so it looked even more frosted.
When everything is dry, I went over the wing lines with my Sharpie and also outlined the beads/gems. I wanted this to look like stained glass and tried using the Gallery Glass liquid lead, but I couldn’t control it from running, so I resorted to a Sharpie.
When the background dries, I like to add glitter dots on the wings, using glitter glue, I love glitter, lol.
All that is left is the lights!! I purchased mine on Amazon for about $1.00 a set.

While a beautiful piece as is, when turned on they take on a whole new look as a beautiful lamp. Especially nice to use as a night light. As an added bonus, the batteries can be bought at the Dollar Tree!!