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Family Photo Projects

Looking for a great gift idea for the holidays? Give away a hand painted frame with your photograph in it. This is a fun art project you can do at home and it is really easy to do. The translucent glass paint imitates the look of stained glass windows and our results have been wonderfully colorful.

• Your favorite picture.
• A simple glass frame that is held by 4 metal clips on the sides.
• Several colors of glass paint (I recommend Vitrail, transparent colors for glass painting) and a few relief outliner tubes.
• Some brushes of different sizes.
• A bottle of turpentine for cleaning the brushes and when changing color.
• Tissue paper to wipe your brushes.
• Newspaper or other surface to work on and a set of old clothes.

To begin with you select your photograph and put it in the middle of the frame behind the glass on a white sheet of paper. Then close the metal clips to hold it all in place. Your photograph should be about an inch and a half smaller than your frame. The smaller your photograph the bigger the frame you get to paint around it.Then decide on a relief outline color and draw a line around the photograph and around the outside edge of the glass to define the area you can paint in. Sometimes a small hard bit of paste will get stuck in the relief outliner tube and block it, if that happens use a needle to clear it out and continue normally.

Now you have to choose what you want your design to be. Try and start with some easy patterns or flowers and when you feel comfortable move on to more complicated designs. It might help to use something from your picture as inspiration. To draw the outlines of the designs can be tricky and requires a little practice, just squeeze the outliner evenly and drag the tube at the same time. Don’t push the tube and don’t squeeze too hard or too much will come out at once!!! If you make a mistake you can wipe the relief paste off the glass with the tissue. The outliner dries really fast, in about 5-10 minutes. It is better to wait until the relief is hard because otherwise you might smudge it. The relief helps you to keep the colors from flowing into each other. You can also use it to write something on top of a background color.

When the outlines are hard you can fill in the colors with a brush. You can mix the colors in a separate palette to create new colors. Be careful not to spill any of the glass paint on your clothes because the color will not wash out with water. With the darker colors like blue and purple the color comes out better if you apply only a thin coat. When you are finished leave the paint to dry and your beautiful frame is finished. The paint is touch dry in one hour and fully dry in 8 hours.

When the outlines are hard you can fill in the colors with a brush. You can mix the colors in a separate palette to create new colors. Be careful not to spill any of the glass paint on your clothes because the color will not wash out with water. With the darker colors like blue and purple the color comes out better if you apply only a thin coat. When you are finished leave the paint to dry and your beautiful frame is finished. The paint is touch dry in one hour and fully dry in 8 hours.

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	it is very beuty i wish icould reach this level if you can help me e mail me Posted by: refka Sep 4, 2007 @ 6:3 PM EST
	it is very beuty i wish icould reach this level if you can help me e mail me Posted by: refka Sep 4, 2007 @ 6:7 PM EST

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