Antique Window Painting

You might think that there are a million pins of Pinterest detailing the absolute best way to paint words on glass. In this case, an antique window. However, I was quite surprised when after an hour and a half of searching, I couldn't find even one! There were some pins that came close and others that said they were painted on but were really vinyl cut. It wasn't frustrating, simply baffling. 

Then I realized that all those talented people who have all the tricks for painting on windows are probably Etsy shop owners so no way would they "sell their secrets". I can't really blame them, I mean, they probably make a good amount of money off those things. Even so, I simply could not find a tutorial that helped me do what I wanted to do. 

So, I improvised and here is what I did. 

I gathered my materials:

Antique window from a local antique shop

Paint pens-I used the Tree House studio brand from Hobby Lobby but have also seen DecoColor and Craftstudio brand paint pens and they look like they would work also. 

Fabric

Teapot and Teacup designs

Scissors

Elmer's glue spray adhesive
a single edged razor blade

After I made sure I had everything I needed, I went to work. 

The first thing I did was find free graphics for the teapot and and teacup. Of course, I went to Pinterest for this. And I found a pin and it took me to these free graphics courtesy of Vintage Glam Studio.

I downloaded the document and printed an enlarged version so that my cutouts weren't tiny.
After printing a larger version of the graphics, I cut them out and traced the outline onto my fabric. Then I cut the fabric.

It was about this point that I stopped taking pictures because the project started to become very involved. (Erm, I forgot.)

Then I flipped the fabric over to the "wrong side" (is there a technical term for this?), laid it on a piece of paper and sprayed it down with the adhesive spray. Then, of course, I had to move it to the glass. I already knew where I wanted it to go so I gently placed it on the glass then smoothed it out. It dried pretty quickly so I only had a short window (yuk, yuk) of time to work with.

After the fabric teapot and teacup were secured on the glass, I went to work on the painting.

This was trickier and I went through 3 different techniques before finally just free handing everything.

Something to keep in mind: I printed a design from word so that I could copy from that to the glass. What I should have done was print a large version of the design and tape it to the back of the window so I could "trace" the letters with the paint markers. But that didn't happen because I didn't think about that until it was too late. I won't go into detail about how I did it because it's complicated and took way too much time. Do what I should've done! It'll save you time and energy.

Even though I spent more time than I needed to on this project, I enjoyed the process because I can share with you the things I learned. Like, how to cut out 3 hours by printing a design and taping it to the backside. Let me know what you think! AND if you would like one made for you or someone you know, let me know in the comments and we can work something out!