The past three years we have made what we call Stained "Glass" Ornaments.  They are not glass at all.

First we design the ornaments using a print or graphic program.  We start with a circle, and then put our design inside.  The simpler the design the better.  You can use a different shape than circle, but those seem to be easiest for us.  I prefer to use Celtic knotwork or imagery inside of mine.  Here is a generic one we made last year.

Then we print it on inkjet transparencies in black using mirror-image setting.  Be sure to set the paper setting to transparency, otherwise it won’t be very visible.  It would work much better to print on a laser printer using laser printer transparencies, since you wouldn’t have the coating to deal with.  The inkjet transparencies are not cheap, but a hundred of them will last for a long time if you are careful with them.

Next we paint them using glass stain or sun-catcher paint you would purchase at a craft store.  We use both the type that has glitter and the regular type.  They coordinate well on the ornament.  Be sure to paint on the side that isn’t printed on, otherwise the ink will get messed up.  This particular ornament is very intricate, and not for the faint of heart.

Here is an attempt at a picture of one of the ornaments.  The flash caused part of it to whiteout. 

There are a myriad of ways you can paint Celtic knotwork.  Usually you would want to paint the knotwork in alternating colors.

Here are a couple more template ornaments that we made. 

These are old ones, obviously.  I did some much better ones last year, but I designed them in Print Artist because it’s easier to do the mirror image print.  I uninstalled it this year when I had some harddrive trouble and I can’t access those right now.  Obviously I need to reinstall Print Artist.

For the round ornaments, I used a die cutter to cut the ornament.

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