How to Paint on Glass (Reverse Glass Painting)

From The DIYnetwork, lots of good information was given by author and artist Edie Stockstill.

Reverse painting on glass looks more complicated than it is. It requires painting a design on one side of glass that is viewed from the other side.

Materials: Traced or freehand design, Glass, Black acrylic-enamel paint, several colors of acrylic-enamel paint, long liner brush, small paintbrushes, water

Begin by choosing a design to duplicate. Trace the design or draw one freehand. Tape the traced pattern on the right side of the glass -- the side that will be viewed.

Use acrylic enamel (which is a permanent glass paint) and a long liner brush to begin painting the outline of the pattern on the reverse side of the glass. After main colors have dried, begin adding accent colors.

So I chose a dark blue, an orange, and a light yellow-orange color of acrylic enamel, using the color wheel and split complementary colors which I thought would be effective for a butterfly image. The butterfly is a piece of clip art found under a search engine on the internet. I first drew the outline of a butterfly on the bottom side of the platter and began painting on the bottom, ignoring the step recommended for tracing your image on the "right side" of the glass. Either way would work.

The DIY Network also gives this information:

Anything that is glass can be used to paint on. The plainer the glass the better to paint on. Do not let the painted glass sit in hot soapy sink for long because other objects bump up against it and can chip it. Just paint simple designs on your glassware. You do not want to cover the entire glass with paint, because part of the beauty of the glass is being able to see what is inside. Once you have painted your design on the glassware, let it cure for at least 24 hours. Make sure your oven is off and then put your glassware in and bake at 325 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes but no longer because the colors will change.

Above is a picture of the platter painted with a butterfly (set atop a red rug background) before it was popped into the oven for a quick bake. The colors look more brilliant than the digital camera captured, but you get the idea of this easy project.

My friend Janet will be the recipient of this painted platter, even though she asked me to do this for her ages ago. Did you forget, Janet?

Look At Me Socks; pattern by Hedgehog NeedleArt Designs

I finished these "Look at Me" socks two days ago. The pattern can be found at Woolworks. The yarn is 100% wool, a superwashed fibre. The only objection I have with this pattern is that the calf part seems to be a lot larger than the sock fitted area. Maybe after a while, it will look like a slouch sock.

How to Get Your Own Word Cloud

The above is my "Word Cloud" generated free of charge from Snapshirts*.

You can get a word cloud generated from your personal blog or a blog that you like simply by clicking on "Custom" at their site (ignore the $18 fee unless you want something printed up using your Word Cloud). This company scans words from the url of the cited blog and alphabetically, but randomly, prints out selected words in different sized fonts.

It made me realize that the specific words in my cloud accurately express my interests since I frequently penned those highlighted words in my blog theme of arts and crafts.

For grins, I also tried out the url site of my husband's blog. And yep, but of course, his word cloud reflects what he thinks and writes about. I had to laugh, though, at some of the generated words he would not like to shout out to the world ("liberal" and "Hillary" to name a few). It got me thinking about other people and what their word clouds might look like...you get the drift.

And what do YOU mostly think about? What would your personal Word Cloud say? Pondering that thought might save you years in psychotherapy.

Snapshirts* even lets you "DESELECT" generated words, allowing for substitutions. What a kick that could be to start off with Snapshirt's selected words, and then come up with your own set.

I wish them good business off their innovative approach to the blog world; they certainly got a couple of my bucks.