Have you ever had one of those days where you can feel the creative juices flowing? For whatever reason, it’s the perfect day for a creative project… maybe it’s a rainy day, maybe you have the house to yourself, or maybe you just got paid! … whatever the reason, you feel creative! If that day comes but you haven’t planned a project or purchased the supplies ahead of time, you can turn out a quick glass gem project in an afternoon!

Glass gems are one of the most inexpensive craft supplies out there! They come in 2-lb net bags for less than $4.00. You can purchase bags containing one color, or a mixed bag. The gems come in different sizes and shapes. Mix and match to your heart’s content!

Supplies: All you need is a cheap picture frame (with glass insert), some glass gems and glue! That’s it!

Hints for Success:

Be sure to glue your gems on the glass insert while resting it on a flat working surface (horizontal) . If you were to try and glue the gems on the insert while it is in a vertical position, then the weight of the gems would slide them down (gravity) before they are dry.

You want to have the wood picture frame set on top of the glass insert while gluing the gems, in order to ensure that you don’t get the gems too close to the edge of the glass insert, which would keep the insert from fitting back inside the frame when the project is dry. If you aren’t comfortable working inside the wood frame, then use it as a guide and mark the glass with a dry erase marker instead.

Random-Composition Project

This was my first glass gem project, framed and sitting in a window-sill.

All I did was rest the glass insert on a flat working surface, glue (a small dab’ll do it!) the gems onto the surface of the glass insert and let dry.

I used no particular pattern; just started from the upper left corner and composed!

Notice my favorite glue and bags of gems on the left…

I will say that, since this was my first glass gem project, I tried mixing in some solid gems (see center of frame) with transparent gems, and I didn’t like the result. It looks okay when the project is resting flat on top of a solid surface…

…but when you stand it in a window, the light doesn’t go through the solid gems, so it interrupts the “tranquility factor.”

Here’s how pretty it looked standing in a window sill, next to a previous stained glass project of mine…