Welcome to my first Craft Sunday at the 1956 Fixer Upper. DIL asked if she could invite a couple of friends to our Craft Sunday and I happily complied. This month we are going to try painting on glass so I picked up several pieces of clear glassware at a thrift store and spent an afternoon practicing so I could give at least a little guidance toward success. My project is a pumpkin on a stemmed wineglass using flat acrylic craft paint. The second project is also a pumpkin but using gloss enamel paint. Pumpkins are all different, so don’t strive to make them so matchey matchey. Both paint methods were successful, but the enamel will be a more durable finish after it is baked and a bit more washable if I use it as a wine glass. Read on for my success tips.
Work on a covered surface with all your materials gathered together. Wash and dry the glasses in hot soapy water and let them dry before wiping the glass down with rubbing alcohol. The rubbing alcohol ensures no body oils will interfere with the paint adhesion. If you choose to use the enamel paint, work in a ventilated area. If you use a spray sealant on the finished paint, definitely do that in a ventilated area like the garage.
Materials:
- glass to paint on
- acrylic or enamel paint, spray sealant for the non-enamel projects
- pumpkin colors: red, yellow, dark brown, black, green and white if you need to lighten some colors.
- rubbing alcohol
- paper towels
- paper plates to hold some paint
- small containers of water to
- paint brushes in several sizes.
A word of encouragement; very little talent is needed for this project. One of the crafters claimed she had no drawing talent but made the beautiful red pumpkin in the photo! Even the little girls aged 3-10 made some impressive art. Most everyone free handed their art, but you can easily slide a print inside the glass to use as a template.
For the pumpkin: First paint a base color (I used a 1” flat paint brush and yellow paint) over the glass. Don’t paint inside the glass or the flat bottom of the glass. Give it a few minutes to dry. That’s the beauty of the acrylic, it only takes minutes.
Now paint on 5 lines for the pumpkin ribs from the base of the glass to the rim using a small round brush and a brown or black color. If you have a pumpkin to look at, notice how the stem has a little triangle shape connecting the stem to each of the rib areas. Make similar triangle shapes at the bottom of the pumpkin too. Leave the stem to last. You will have an oval shape between each rib that will be painted orange.
Next use a dark red or orange and a small flat brush to layer between the ribs. Add another depth of color with some lighter orange and yellow giving the allusion of highlights. 
You can continue to layer and blend the colors until it looks pleasing to you. If you’re using a flat paint, don’t worry about the dullness, when you get all done you’ll spray with a glossy acrylic finish and it will POP with color.
Use a little water on your brush to add more brown to the rib area. Blend the edges into the red.
Use the brown to paint the glass stem to represent the pumpkin stem. It will look nice if it is a little blotchy with light and dark brown and a little black.
Let the pumpkin dry before painting on several (3 is a good number) leaves draping down from the stem onto the pumpkin. Use a small round detail brush with black paint to draw the leaf outlines and veins. Fill and blend in the green leaf. Spray the finished project with a glossy finish spray and top it with a candle.
The enamel pumpkin:
On the enamel pumpkin to the left I used a black enamel paint pen to “draw” a leaf shape then filled it in with a green enamel paint pen covering most of the black outlines.
If you plan to use the glasses for beverages, you should leave a 3/4” clean border around the glass rim. To make that easy, simply tape the 3/4” border with painters tape for a straight clean edge.
The moms each have their own talent and style for painting. Take a look at how their projects turned out.
The snow vase has a base of very light blue. Mask of the top 3/4’' for a clear rim then add blue sponged on dots (they match my newly painted front door). There are white sponged dots on the blue background. We used various sizes of round sponges to dab on snowman balls then a small paint brush to add all kinds of details such as hats, gloves, scarves, eyes, noses, smiles and arms. Each snowman is unique. This vase will be planted with Narcissus bulbs in a very near future post. I love forcing Narcissus blooms during winter, they are so pleasant.
I set up a kid table so the little girls that came with the moms could craft too. They were given some inexpensive non-breakable plastic party ware to paint on. As you can see, they were quite creative.
