About five years ago I developed this project, which I still really love. It's very simple. Water-based enamel paint is poured into glass vessels and swirled around to coat the inside. The magic part is that the white sets off the various blue and green tints in the glass (a surprisingly common characteristic, check your recycling! For some reason most olive oil is bottled in green-tinted glass...).

Anyway, we reinterpreted this idea to create the dipped glassware below, which appears in the September issue.

A third, even simpler version of this process is to swirl the paint to only partially cover the interior of the glass, and leave an irregular painterly edge to the color. I love the results just as much! See below:

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1 Craft paint mixed with a medium for glass painting, about half and half...

2 Pour straight into a glass bottle, jar, or cylinder, holding vertically to so the paint hits the bottom.

3

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5 It's nice to leave a wiggly irregular edge!

6 Some finished examples—the vase on the far right is embellished with spray-mounted foil. Another simple project, see link at the end of this post!

This paint is made permanent and washable two ways. For the bake method: After drying for 1 hour, place in cool oven. Set temp to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. (Glass must heat gradually.) After 30 minutes, turn off the oven. Let glass cool completely in oven. Don’t use for 72 hours. For the air-dry method: It will cure after 21 days and will be dishwasher top-shelf safe!

Shown in the album above is a cylinder embellished with really inexpensive foil—also cool!

Tags: craft, home decor, Living, paint
Posted by Athena Preston on August 18, 2011 in Make It, Photo Galleries