Faux Dichroic Glass

Well this was a fun way to spend a not so very summery afternoon - wind and rain prevented an outing that we had been planning, however my husband was intrigued by something I have been dying to try out since buying Tim Holtz' DVD "The Journey Continues". The project was to make faux dichroic glass.

It's easy enough to make if you have the tools and ingredients - we started with


Sea Glass (tumbled glass will also do, you need the roughened surfact for the UTEE to stick to)
UTEE - Clear, Black and a variety of colours made by colouring the UTEE prior to heating with with Alcohol Inks. Do NOT add the alcohol inks to hot UTEE - mix it with the cold powder and keep stirring till all the alcohol has evaporated off.
A Melt Pot
Cool Toolz to use with the Melt Pot
Craft Foil (courtesy of my friend Winspiration, owner of Foilplay)
Regular Embossing poweders - (we had some Cosmic Shimmers and some holographic
glitter ones).

To make my pices I first mixed several colours of UTEE by placing some powder into a dish, adding some Alcohol ink and stirring it. At first the powder clumps, but keep stirring and the colour will blend through to an even shade. Once it stops clumping you know the alcohol in the inks has evaporated.

Next step was to heat up the the Melt Pot and place a glass piece in it. It only takes a few seconds for the glass to heat up and then you can sprinkle a thin layer of UTEE on - once it melts use a spatula to lift the piece out and place it sticky side down on the back of some foil. Let it cool and when you lift it the foil will be stuck to the glass.

Next you place the glass foil side up back into the melt pot and start adding the coloured UTEE - you can also add little sprinkles of Metallic EP, glitter EP or stuff like the Cosmic Shimmer EPs. Once all your coloured powders are melted you then add a final top coat of the clear UTEE. With that last coat melted you lift your piece out on the spatula and lay it on a non stick craft sheet to cool.

We had a variety of foils to play with and the photos show pieces made with foil that has an oil on water effect, some self coloured blue foil, some silver foil and one piece used holographic sliver foil. The holographic foil however does not work as well as the others as the heat seems to destroy most of the holographic effect leaving it more like a plain sliver foil.

Anyhow these are the result of our playing today, the photos don't really do the pieces proper justice, but I hope you get the idea of how pretty they look. I plan to use these to decorate a photo frame when I have made enough bits, but that will require another visit to the beach to collect more sea glass! I must say an added bonus today was getting hubby involved - even tho it meant I had to take turn about with him at the melt pot!