A stained glass window is a beautiful sight, and wouldn’t a stained glass suncatcher be divine? But purchasing glass and learning how to cut it and all that jazz sounds cool … but a little overwhelming.
What if you could create an absolutely gorgeous paper stained glass suncatcher with supplies you could find right at home? Oh, if only… WAIT, you can!
We’ve got an easy-to-follow 4-step DIY to create a beautiful stained glass suncatcher that you’ll thoroughly enjoy and have your family, friends, guests, and even the mail carrier admiring your stained glass suncatcher and wondering how you made it.
This handy stained glass suncatcher DIY was stumbled upon at our local library; how neat is that! Libraries always have fun crafts, book clubs, and free events and activities ready to go for their community. So, be sure to support and check out your local library!
Ready to get this crafting party started? Pull out that crafting tote, and let’s get to work!
Supplies Needed For Stained Glass Suncatcher
What’s super awesome about this stained glass suncatcher is how accessible the supplies items are; we bet half of these necessities are in your home! And others are either budget-friendly or can be found for free online (Pst, check out the section below this for some free goodies!).
Let’s take a closer look at the supplies you’ll need for your stained glass suncatcher:
- Coloring sheet
- Colored Pencils or Crayons
- Oil (Cooking Oil, Olive, Vegetable, your choice!)
- Mason jar ring
- Decorative string or twine
- Pencil
- Paper towel
- Scissors
- Patience (We had to throw a funny one in there, although you could use this for your stained glass suncatcher for drying time!)
Free Coloring Sheets!
In this economy, who doesn’t love free things? And free quality things at that! Follow the links below for some beautiful and fun free coloring sheets that you can utilize for this Stained Glass Suncatcher DIY or for some nice downtime.
“Some days seem to fit together like a stained glass window. A hundred little pieces of different color and mood that, when combined, create a complete picture.”
-Maggie Stiefvater
Create Your Own Stained Glass Suncatcher
Below will follow 4 steps in your stained glass suncatcher DIY journey, and there’s lots of fun to be had along the way!
Wondering where or what you would do with a stained glass suncatcher? We’ve got you covered:
- Hang it up in a window at home you enjoy looking through
- Place it in a porch window where it can greet your guests
- Give it away as a sweet little gift
- Surprise your neighbor/loved one
- Have a fun and inexpensive crafting night
- Place these cuties in free little libraries
- Get the kiddos involved and hang them in their bedroom windows
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”
-Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Step One: Color Your Stained Glass Suncatcher Coloring Sheet
Essentially, your coloring sheet doesn’t have to look like traditional stained glass; you can use any coloring sheet that you’d like!
But, if you’d like that classic stained glass suncatcher look then we’d suggest using a design that looks similar to the one in our example.
This step is nice, easy, and fun! Color that sheet up with a variety of colors, or get your own color scheme going on. The brighter, the better!
Step Two: Apply Oil To Your Stained Glass Suncatcher Coloring Sheet
Alright, so you’ve got your coloring sheet all colored in, looking all lovely; now it’s time to get your oil ready and put the stain in stained glass.
Take 2 pieces of paper towel; one you’ll place under your coloring sheet, and the other you can fold up to create a makeshift swab.
Next, you’ll need just a little bit of oil in a small saucer that you can dip your paper towel swab into.
Now, dip your swab in the oil, pressing it against the side after dipping to get out the extra oil, and gently spread it over the top of your stained glass suncatcher coloring sheet.
IMPORTANT: You don’t want to oversaturate your stained glass suncatcher coloring sheet with oil, or it could potentially ruin your project. Taking light dips and pressing out the extra oil on the side of the saucer will help. You can also hold your coloring sheet up to the window to see if it’s working; your sheet will appear translucent!
Once you’ve covered your coloring sheet with oil, allow it to dry for 1-2 hours. We checked ours after 1 hour, and it appeared to need some more drying. With that being said, check on your paper and dry it for at least 1 hour, but 2 would be best.
Step Three: Trace, Cut, & Glue
This will be the most technical part of the stained glass suncatcher DIY, but it’s easy-peasy and we’ll walk you through it!
After your coloring sheet has dried, place your mason jar lid over the part of your sheet you want to shine and shimmer in your window and trace around it with a penicl.
Once you’ve traced, cut along the inside of your traced line. We made a tensy tiny mistake and cut along the line and ours ended up being too big. Who knew what a big difference it would make! Hey, everyone makes mistakes, right?
Once your paper is all cut out, test to make sure it fits inside your lid (with the picture facing outward) before gluing down.
Now it’s time to get that glue down and stick your stained glass suncatcher coloring sheet in there! You’re one step closer to being done!
Step Four: Fasen String & Hang Up Your Stained Glass Suncatcher
As we mentioned in Step 3, we made a itty bitty mistake while cutting, so as you can notice, our stained glass suncatcher looks a tiny bit different. Good thing we had a backup ready to go!
After your glue has dried, you can take your string and tie it around the mason jar lid, and make a knot to fasen it in place like in the 2 pictures below.
Then, you’ll take the ends and tie another knot at the top so you can create a little loop for hanging. You can snip the ends of the string if you’d like!
And now your stained glass suncatcher is ready for hanging! You can even purchase a suctioncup hanger to get a better range of where to place your stained glass suncatcher on your window. Or, you can make your string however long you’d like. Either way, you’ve completed your stained glass suncatcher project!
My goodness, the crafting clock runs fast when you’re having a blast. You’ve got what it takes to color, craft, and complete your very own unique, beautiful, and creative stained glass suncatcher that’s ironically glass-free!
Thank you for stopping by, and be sure to check out our other Hygge-like crafts, and fun DIY projects!