The Beauty of Stained Glass

Stained glass has always fascinated me. I'm old enough to have attended many churches when stained glass windows were still their main windows. There is definitely something awe-inspiring being bathed in the colorful reflections of depicted scenes! While I was in college, friends and I had the chance to visit Paris. France was an experience in many ways, but what I remember most isn't the cheap hotel, multitude of cheese sandwiches (the only item we could order in French), or even the grandeur of Notre Dame; it's the sunlight streaming through the ceiling to floor windows of Ste. Chapelle:

This is a photo by Ricardo André Frantz; I wanted to use my own photo, but our scanner is currently on strike and my photo was taken long before the days of digital cameras!

DRS Designs carries several stained glass stamps and has a tutorial describing different ways to use them to create your own masterpieces.

The stained glass image is stamped first and then a second image is stamped over the stained glass pattern. In this card, I stamped the glass pattern on vellum and then stamped the Christ is Risen (with sentiment masked out because it would have been lost in the glass pattern) over top. The cross and lilies were colored in first and then the remaining glass pattern is colored using a random pattern of coordinating colors :

Stamps by DRS Designs: Large Oval Stained Glass, Christ is Risen, Easter sentiment. Ink: Versamark, Memento, Copics, white gel pen. Cardstock: Black textured, Creative Memories yellow, vellum, GP110 white. Accessories: oval Nestabilities, wide white organdy.

Inside the card is a white panel which makes the vellum colors more vivid when the card is closed.

The reason I chose vellum is the effect when displayed in front of a sunlit window:

It may not be quite the grandeur of Ste. Chappelle, but it's impressive in its own way!

A quick and easy way to achieve the stained glass effect is to stamp directly onto colorful designer paper as I did with this Sunset Butterfly card:

Stamps: Large Oval Stained Glass, Butterfly 4 Corner Background, Silhouette Butterfly. Ink: Versamark Onyx Black. Cardstock: Basic Black, white, scrap DP. Accessories: Top Note die, oval Nestabilities, black dotted organdy ribbon.

Stamping directly onto DP works best with bold images, like the silhouette butterfly. And this technique has the advantage of helping you use up your ancient stash of cardstock!

I've had so much fun playing with this stained glass stamp that I still have a couple more projects in the wings, especially designed for St. Patrick's Day. In the meantime, be sure to check out all the amazing stained glass projects created by the DRS Designs' Design Team for the current blog challenge!