A Garden Window to Another World

Megan
by Megan
4 Materials
I am a huge lover of all things mosaic and stained glass. I wanted to do some garden art with old windows, incorporating a stained glass mosaic look, to bring some color into my back yard while using readily available materials that didn’t cost too much.








Step one: find an old window. Wouldn’t you know, when I am looking for one, I can never find one. I was wandering around ReStore one Saturday Morning and came across this. We think it was part of an old wood screen door. Whatever it was, the people at ReStore deemed it un-sellable, and just gave it to me. I loved the scalloped shape of the opening so I decided I could figure out how to make it work.


I thought long and hard about what type of finish I wanted. I knew I wanted it colorful. I wanted it somewhat distressed, but not necessarily chipping. I decided I wanted to go with the worn paint look I had seen so many times on my trips to the Bahamas… where things are painted with layers upon layers of different bright colors and as time wears them down, bits and pieces of the previous colors show.


Apparently, “Distressed Bahamas Finish” isn’t a big thing, so finding examples was hard. Finding a tutorial was near impossible. So, I decided to wing it.









I chose purple and yellow, because those are the colors of the house and I wanted to carry some of that into the back yard. I cleaned and sanded the surface, but didn’t do too much prep because I liked the weathered texture it had.  I started with a plum shade of purple (it was on sale).









Once that dried, I dry brushed a yellow on top of it. Here is a tip I am glad I stumbled across: When you are winging it, start on the back of the project so you make all your trial and error mistakes there. I am certainly glad I did, because I was very unhappy with the bright yellow over the dark plum purple. There was too much contrast and not enough depth. So I rooted around in my craft closet and found a nice light purple craft paint made for outside.









I dry brushed the lighter purple over the yellow, and Voila! There was the weathered look I was going for! 









Next task was turning this old thing into a “window”. I bought Plexiglas from the hardware store and had them cut it to size there. Then Super Hubby carefully drilled holes in it and attached it with screws to the frame.  









It was a pretty big blank canvas, so to add a little interest, I had Super Hubby glue down (Clear Gorilla Glue!) thin trim wood to make it look like there were three panes of glass. I then painted them to match the frame. 


 Now for the design. I had this image in my head of an in-bloom Cherry or Crabapple tree with a giant trunk with roots. Only in my head, the beautiful tree was growing hearts. I decided to follow my imagination. 









I taped some sketch paper together and roughed out a sketch of the tree. (Very rough, because I knew I wouldn’t be following the lines exactly).


Now it was on to creating the picture. I decided to use trusty ole glass gems. I was able to get blue and green ones at the dollar store. I got red and amber/brown ones at the craft store. Then I hunted every crafty/florally place in my area to collect enough pink/peach/purple ones for the flowering tree. Pink is a tough color to find.









I started dry fitting the marbles, starting with the trunk. When I had them where I wanted them, I glued them down with E6000.

















(Here is my daughter watching the process!)









At this point, it was just a matter of filling in the picture. Thankfully, the glass gems came in all different sizes so I was able to fill the awkward spots. I did end up having to cut a few using a tile nipper. (Cover the nipper& gem with a rag of some sort and wear goggles, because the glass will fly when you cut it!)







Now, for the hardest part. The spaces in between. I chose not to grout it traditionally for two reasons: 1. I wanted it more transparent. 2. Clear silicone grout is ridiculously expensive. I settled on buying some exterior silicone caulk that dries clear. I filled the spaces between each of the glued down gems.  Much to my surprise, this did not take as long as I had feared. I had it completed in about a day and a half (with lots of breaks to rest my hands, as it was a squeeze tube of caulk).











Here is my final window! It can be hung so the sun shines through it, or used as a piece of art hanging on the fence… like a window to another world! 








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  • Maxine Waller Maxine Waller on Mar 01, 2018

    I have been thinking about using the gems on the sidelights on my front door, but am afraid of the weight. Also, I wonder what the backs would look like from the outside. What do you think?


  • Debby Debby on Mar 01, 2018

    It turned out Beautiful! How heavy did it end to be? With all the glass gems, it looks like it would be pretty heavy.

  • Panamachick Panamachick on Mar 02, 2018

    GOOD JOB! what's the next project gonna be?

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