Stained Glass Pot Plant Holder

Brighten up your plants with a stained glass pot plant holder.

Things You Need:

• Glass
• Craft knife(for cutting leads)
• Liquid lead(available in bottles and tubes from arts and crafts shop)
• Transparent glass paints(available in variety of brands and shades from arts and crafts shop)
• Paint thinner(available from hardware stores and are used to thin the tarnsparent glass paints)
• Thin marker(for tracing the design on the glass)
• Paint brushes of various sizes.
• Solder
• Soldering Iron
• Solder Flux
• Masking Tape
• Copper Foil
• Copper Wire
• Grey Patina

The Method:

1. Enlarge the templates for the pot plant holder and ask your glass merchant to cut the 4 pieces of glass,the size of the template.Ask your glass merchant to rub the glass edges with the sand stone so as to prevent your hands from cuts.
2.  Clean the glass with glass cleaner.
3. Surround the piece of glass with 10mm to 12mm wide copper foil as done in the video shown in: http://living4artncraft.blogspot.com/2010/12/hand-mirror-using-stained-glass.html
4. Copy the template to the glass and outline it with lead.
5. For detailed instructions on outlining with lead and for using transparent colors to the glass please follow: http://living4artncraft.blogspot.com/2010/09/stained-glass.html.
6. Once the paint has dried,use the craftt knife to scratch off any paint that may have got on copper foil.
7. Apply the transparent frost texture smoothly and evenly,to the painted areas,frosting will take from 1-10 hrs to dry depending on the room temperature,and will prevent the paint work from getting scratched.
8. Once the frost texture has dried,thin down the yacht varnish with a little bit of  turpentine thinner and carefully apply a coat to the painted areas.Allow it to dry for 24 hours.
9. Tape the four sections of the pot plant holder together with masking tape,leaving a 2mm(1/16 in)gap between each piece of glass.
10. Brush the copper foil with flux and spot solder the pieces together.
11. For soldering instructions: http://living4artncraft.blogspot.com/2010/12/using-solder-and-soldering-iron-for.html
12. When you are happy with the fit,remove the tape,brush on flux and flow solder along the seams,first on the outside,then on the inside.
13. Turn the pot plant holder upside down and tape the base in position.Brush the copper foil with flux and spot solder.Remove the tape,brush with flux and flow solder along the seams,both outside and inside the pot plant holder.
14. Using a soft rag,rub grey patina over the soldered areas so that they co-ordinate with the adhesive lead.  
15. Add some mud and plant your favourite plant in the beautiful pot plant holder.

Templates and image is courtesy of Barry Bier's book.