Simulating stained glass....

 27th March - 3rd May 2022

After finishing up the grouting of the tiles, I began to tackle the windows. I read in the instructions that the inside windows would be installed last (the roof is all windows so that needed to be installed first) but since I was planning to add some stained glass panes to the windows, I decided to find some images to print out.

I found quite a few Googling under “window film”. There are many companies that produce these films that can be applied to your own windows to make them appear as if they have been painted or whatever. One company - Art Scape - had beautiful images. So I copied a few (yes, will tag them here)and made a trial printout on a page of acetate. Honestly, it came out better than I’d imaged! 

Trial inkjet print

But since acetate on an inkjet printer can be difficult, I decided to wait a day at least to be sure the ink was dry before trying to apply the acetate sheet onto the window. The building instructions indicated that although both sides of the window panes are protected by a sort of film, only one side is actually acrylic. I was very confused by this. But I had to trust their instruction and waited till the acetate film was dry to make a test run on inserting it between the acrylic pane and the wooden frame. Just like real stained glass, the printout has layers of color on it so I had to make sure the external image is the one giving a full color experience to the viewer. Which is opposite of what you usually find in a stain glass pane.  It should look its best from inside the structure - where the viewer gets the full benefit of sunlight filling the pane and reflecting it through to the inside. But since I plan on lighting the inside, I want the windows to look great from the outside as it'll be the first thing the viewer will see. So, a few days later I checked out the acetate sheet and sure enough the ink wasn't dry. That meant I had to spray it with the clear varnish spray I had used for the water decals. Course, it left large drops here and there. Not too stressed over it since I sort of like the look of pebble glass window. I placed the lemons at the top of the panes and glued them into place (kinda messy, I admit). I like the look honestly! Very subtle.

Cutting down to size with the Cricutter

Positioned....

...and glued in. Looks ok.

But I thought it could look better. So decided to give the decal option a go.

Total waste of time. I printed the stained glass images on the decal paper, sprayed the fixing spray with drying time over two days and cut the images to size. 

They are quite bigger than the plate decals obviously but since they were no problem getting them to slide off the backing paper I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal on these either. My idea was to slide them on to the sheet of acetate and then cut them to size for the windows. But they just wouldn’t slide after soaking. Even the smaller images of the lemons for the top were a throw away.

Soaking the page...

...failing to slide it off onto the acetate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, I gave up with the decal idea and went directly to having the images printed on the acetate sheet but using a color laser jet printer. I went to the local copy center and had them print them off for me. Two sheets €6.00 but the result looked promising. 

Professionally printed on acetate.

I used new cutter to shave off millimeters at a time from the images so they would fit into the window areas. I ran into problems getting the window panes to fit in but that was more from my previous gluing attempt which forced me to do some clean up before I could actually install the windows. Best glue to use here was UHU rapid glue. Which worked great! Using a toothpick and a tiny drop in the corners was enough. I like them but they do look more like a curtain/film than actual stained glass.  I think I’ll just leave these for now and see if they grow on me before doing more. I do want to install the lemon tree window pane though.

Positioning the acetate film.

Outside view.

Inside view.

You can see the brick “wall” I am creating in these pics but more on that in my next posting.

And here’s another article on the Bizzarria story. I actually saw a “cedro” at our local flower show about two weeks ago - and I was tempted to buy the plant. It wasn’t a bizzaria but it was a very ugly lemon! I’d just end up killing the plant anyway.