How to Make a Mosaic Suncatcher

Sort your stained glass scraps by colour. If you bought a scrap bag, give the pieces a quick wash and pat them dry before you start. Scraps from your own projects are usually fine as they are.

Spreading them on a white plate makes it much easier to see what you actually have to work with.

Trace around your suncatcher base onto a sheet of paper, then sketch your design inside the circle. Wavy horizontal bands work well for a first attempt because the lines do not have to be precise.

Go over the pencil with a Sharpie once you are happy with it, so the design stays visible through the glass later.

Slide the sketch underneath the clear suncatcher base and tape it in place. Setting the whole thing on a foam block keeps it from sliding around while you work.

Now you can see exactly where each piece needs to go, and you get a preview of how light will come through the finished piece.

Lay your glass out beside the base and start testing colour combinations. Move the groups around until the order looks right to you.

Your scrap batch may have several shades of the same colour, so check them side by side in daylight. This is the stage worth slowing down on, because everything after it is permanent.

Transfer some clear adhesive into a small syringe. Gorilla clear glue holds well on glass and dries clear, but squeezing it straight from the tube gives you far too much.

A syringe lets you put a controlled dot exactly where you want it. Seal the tube and keep it somewhere cold between sessions so it does not set.

Cut lengths of ball chain and glue them along your sketched lines. The chain gives you a clean metallic border between sections and hides the joins where two colours meet.

Press it down into a thin bead of adhesive and let it grab before you move on to the glass.

Put your safety glasses on and cut the glass with wheel nippers. Position the wheels where you want the break, squeeze, and the piece snaps apart.

Holding the nippers at an angle gives you a gentle curve instead of a straight edge. Cutting over a tray keeps the shards contained.

Fill one section at a time, keeping each band a single colour. Put a small dot of adhesive on the back of every piece and press it down firmly so the glue spreads underneath.

Full coverage matters here. Any gap lets grout creep under the glass and the finished piece looks muddy.

Mix about three spoonfuls of powdered grout with water until it reaches a peanut butter consistency. Let it slake for five minutes, which lets the chemical reaction strengthen it.

Give it another stir, work it over the whole mosaic and press it into every gap. Leave it to set for around thirty minutes.

Wipe the excess grout away with a paper towel once it has firmed up. A damp sponge gets into the tight spots around the ball chain.

Keep going until the colour comes back through, then buff the surface with a dry cloth. Hang it where the afternoon light will hit it.