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Celebrate Earth Day with Painted Glass

Celebrate Earth Day with Painted Glass

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A growing number of consumers have made it clear that they want to take a more active

Celebrate Earth Day with Painted Glass

Celebrate Earth Day with Painted Glass

role in supporting and preserving the environment. They’re looking for designs and products that are more environmentally responsible and don’t have long-term impacts on human health. In part, that explains why glass is making a comeback. It also explains the growing interest in painted glass.

Painted glass is environmentally friendly

Painted glass has a lot going for it. From a consumer perspective, glass is often a local or regional product. Because of its nature, transporting glass over long distances isn’t attractive, so most float glass is regionally produced to limit transportation issues.

Consumers can cut ordinary glass to fit an application precisely. While glass is generally heavy, thin glass laminates won’t add a significant amount of weight to walls or surfaces. It’s easy to mount, using readily available adhesives.

Painted glass is easy to make. While you can purchase painted glass, it’s actually less expensive to make your own! Using ordinary painting tools that are available at any local home improvement store, you can make professional quality painted glass. The trick is to use paint like Glassprimer™ glass paint, which is designed to adhere to glass.

Glassprimer™ glass paint comes in two formulations – one that’s oil-based and one that’s water-based. Both formulations are low-VOC compounds. That’s important for interior paint projects, because it means that the paints won’t leave any unpleasant, unhealthy paint odors in your home or office. In either case, you can clean up the paint using regular paint thinner.

Painted glass is safe. Since glass is inert, and the unpainted surface of the finished glass is exposed, you work with a surface that’s easy to clean and sanitize. It won’t deteriorate, and it doesn’t release toxic by-products into your environment.

Products like Glassprimer™ glass paint mean that you can celebrate Earth Day every day in your home or office. If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please check out the rest of our site, at http://www.glassprimer.com.

Photo Credit: NASA

Permanent window paint and other crazy ideas

Permanent window paint and other crazy ideas

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Permanent window paint and other crazy ideas

Permanent window paint and other crazy ideas

If something about the word “permanent” makes you nervous, then the thought of permanent window paint might make you downright queasy. Fear not, permanent window paint is an actual decorating solution that can have a lot of upside in the right situations.

Where you might want to use permanent window paint

Not too long ago, I was in a hotel room in the financial district of Toronto. The original building opened in 1914 as a bank. In 2006, a group of investors added a condominium tower, which wedges between the old building and its former neighbor. My room was in the original building. One of the windows had a great, close-up view of the new building, and nothing else.

The hotel used permanent window paint to disguise the unpleasant view from the window. The painted window still admitted light, but I didn’t have to look at the condo tower. More importantly, the people in the condo tower didn’t have to look at me!

Permanent window paint is a great solution for applications where you’d install frosted glass. The good part about permanent window paint is that it’s actually less expensive than true frosted glass. It’s also easy to apply. Because the permanent window paint is – well – permanent, there’s no need for ongoing paint maintenance. That’s an added bonus when the window is on the 8th floor!

Permanent window paint is an ideal solution for your bathroom, especially if the builder neglected to install a frosted glass window. It’s also a good solution for “pebbled” glass, which some builders substitute for frosted glass.

Pebbled glass is textured on one side. It’s virtually impossible to see out of a pebbled glass window. That might leave you with the (false) impression that it’s likewise impossible to see into a pebbled glass window. Unfortunately, the smooth side of a pebbled glass window can be pretty revealing. To ensure privacy with pebbled glass, paint the smooth side with permanent window paint. Problem solved!

If you’d like more information about permanent window paint, please visit the rest of our site. To place an order for Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store at http://www.glasspaint.com

Photo Credit: Duncan Rawlinson, via Flickr

Painting glass in your home!

Painting glass in your home!

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Painting glass in your home!

Painting glass in your home!

If you’ve never quite gotten the hang of painting, you might be uncomfortable with the idea of painting glass. A painting project basically has two parts: planning and execution. Believe it or not, the hardest part of painting is the planning! If you take some time to plan out your painting projects, you’ll be rewarded with really great results.

Painting glass is only part of the bigger strategy

One problem that people encounter with a painting project is that the end result doesn’t “fit” with the rest of the house. In some cases, a painting project doesn’t fit with the rest of the room. This is where some planning can really pay off. The designs you see in photo shoots have one really big advantage over your project. You never see the featured room in context with the rest of the house.

Unfortunately, when you take on a painting project of your own, people view the finished product in the context of your whole house. An updated room might look great by itself, but doesn’t work in the context of the rest of the space.

Enter the whole house palette. A whole house palette is a color strategy that determines a complementary color scheme for the entire house. As you move from room to room, you use one palette that complements the work you’ve already done. When you’re finished painting and decorating the entire house, the colors you’ve chosen travel easily from room to room. Each room looks great by itself and in the context of the rooms around it.

Painting glass can work into your whole house palette, even if the rest of the house uses paint from another manufacturer. That’s because we can tint Glassprimer™ glass paint to match the paint palette of any major paint manufacturer. Your painted glass will integrate seamlessly with your walls, ceilings, trim and floors, even if another company makes that paint.

If you’d like to know more about painting glass, or you’d like to place an order for glass paint, please visit our online store at http://www.glasspaint.com.

Photo Credit: Lorien Rezende, via Flickr

Are you wondering how to paint glass?

Are you wondering how to paint glass?

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Are you wondering how to paint glass?

Are you wondering how to paint glass?

If you’ve never undertaken a glass painting project, you may not know how to paint glass. Painting glass isn’t difficult, and the results can be spectacular. Making your own painted glass is more economical than buying pre-painted glass. In addition, you can cut the glass to achieve a precision fit before you apply the paint.

Here’s how to paint glass

Surface preparation is the key to professional results. Fortunately, surface preparation for glass is minimal, and requires no special chemicals or tools. To prepare a glass surface for painting, you’ll need fine grit steel wool, alcohol and paper towels. The cheap, store-brand paper towels are actually the best choice. More expensive brands (even those that are supposed to be “lint-free”) tend to leave fibers behind. Once the glass surface is clean, you’re ready to paint.

You can apply paint to glass using virtually any painting tool. That includes brushes, rollers, sponges and paint sprayers. The best, most economical way to apply paint to glass is with a high-volume, low-pressure (HVLP) paint sprayer. These tools are available at any home improvement or hardware store. The biggest advantage they offer is even coverage using the least amount of paint.

Regardless of what application tools you use, the trick to getting professional results is to apply the paint in a thin coat and allow it to dry completely before you add the next coat. Generally, a coat of glass paint is dry to the touch within two hours of application, and ready for another coat in about 4 hours. Avoid handing a wet piece (or a drying piece) of glass. This will eliminate the possibility of damage to the drying paint.

One of the great things about glass paint is that if you make an error, you can remove the paint from the glass as long as you act quickly. You don’t have to move the paint entirely. You can remove the fault and repaint. The repaired paint will dry to the same color as the unrepaired section. This means that your repairs won’t show, once the paint is dry.

As you can see, painting glass is straightforward. Getting professional results is easy, even if you’ve never painted glass before. For more information about how to paint glass, or to order glass paint, please visit our online store at http://www.glasspaint.com .

Photo Credit: StainedGlassArtist, via Flickr.com

Glass painting solves decorating problems

Glass painting solves decorating problems

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Glass painting solves decorating problems

Glass painting solves decorating problems

Every home is unique, and has its own challenges. Despite this, you can find simple ways to solve decorating problems. Glass painting can help open a home, correct decorating mistakes and even correct flaws that affect your ability to enjoy your space.

Inevitably, homes reflect the design preferences that were in place when the home was built. These can include materials, design features, layouts, room sizes and more. Unless you’re willing to undertake a major remodeling, you’ll need to learn to work with some design features in your space. But that doesn’t mean you need to accept everything!

Glass painting can provide practical decorating solutions

For example, older homes commonly have paint that includes toxic metals like lead and mercury. In addition, they may contain leaded glass windows, which shed lead particles. Lead poses a health hazard to every person. The body absorbs lead readily, so limiting exposure is critical, regardless of how old you are!

Removing this kind of paint is difficult. One of the reasons these metals were added to paint was to improve the paint’s durability. Lead and mercury paints don’t tend to peel until they’re at the point of absolute failure. In addition, old paint formulations were often oil-based.

If you know that you have lead paint in your home, sometimes the best solution is to cover it. Keeping paint maintained can be a challenge, since newer water- and latex-based paints don’t tend to bond well to older oil-based paints. They also don’t provide acceptable encapsulation of lead paint .

One way to avoid constant paint maintenance is to cover the paint permanently with a thin glass laminate. The glass laminate prevents paint dust from becoming airborne. Glass painting enables you to add color to the walls while minimizing paint maintenance and immobilizing lead dust.

Lead management is only one example of the value of glass painting in your home. If you’d like more information about glass painting, or you’d like to place an order for glass paint, please visit our online store at http://www.glassprimer.com

Photo Credit: David Barnas, via Flickr.com

Painted glass or stained glass?

Painted glass or stained glass?

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Painted glass or stained glass?

Painted glass or stained glass?

If you’ve paid attention to the stained glass industry, you know that there’s a significant controversy that’s arising around stained glass. Stained glass has been used for decorative purposes since the Middle Ages. The “stained” portion of stained glass relies on the inclusion and melting of heavy metals to create the intense colors that stained glass is known for.

Heavy metals are toxic. They include mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium, chromium and a host of others that are equally bad. The conventional wisdom says that once encased in glass, the metals are harmless. Generally, that’s true, but traditional stained glass production methods mean that stained glass can still pose a danger to human health.

For example, the metal that separates stained glass segments is traditionally (but not always) made of lead. Louis Comfort Tiffany’s stained glass work stands out in part because he did not use lead in many of his works. (He used copper, especially on his lamp shades.)

The lead strips that hold the stained glass in place are an ongoing source of lead dust. The metal sloughs off lead particles, which can then become airborne. For this reason, many people with lead glass windows in their homes have elected to remove and replace the windows, or encase them to reduce their exposure to lead. Production problems in the stained glass industry are also calling into question the long-term availability of stained glass.

Painted glass is emerging as a substitute for traditional stained glass. Many well known “stained glass” works are actually painted! . Painted glass has a different effect, but offers a similar artistic experience. Painted glass has the benefit of not being toxic to handle or produce, and not emitting toxic particles following manufacture and installation.

Painted glass is emerging as a viable substitute for stained glass. Under proper conservation, painted glass can last for hundreds of years.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. Glassprimer™ glass paint can be used in both interior and exterior applications and can help reduce solar heat gain in some applications. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Ninniane , via Flickr.com

Stained glass makes a comeback

Stained glass makes a comeback

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Stained glass makes a comeback

Stained glass makes a comeback

Stained glass has been in the news recently, and not always in a positive way. Recently, stained glass manufacturers have come under increasing federal and state scrutiny, largely because of their furnace emissions. Stained glass colorants are typically derived from heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium. Recent testing of air, soil and water around even small glass furnaces shows an elevated level of these toxic heavy metals. The test results have caused the US EPA and state agencies to reconsider emissions waivers they’d previously granted to smaller scale glass furnaces.

Stained glass artists have bemoaned the potential demise of “true” stained glass. To meet regulatory compliance, stained glass furnaces must install expensive particle filtration units that recapture the toxic emissions. Even when the filtration systems have been installed, rainwater runoff from the factory roofs have deposited high levels of toxic heavy metals into the soils surrounding the plants. One Portland, OR glass furnace has chosen to relocate its facilities to Mexico to avoid having to comply with US air quality standards.

Another concern regarding stained glass is its lead content. Leaded glass windows were common in upscale homes in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Lead particles from the glazing are constantly being shed, and pose an ongoing lead hazard. Athough the windows may have historical significance, many homeowners have chosen to remove the windows as part of a lead abatement plan for their living spaces.

Does this mean the end of stained glass? Not entirely. Although stained glass windows are rightly classified as artworks and offer some very intricate details, some of the “stained glass” windows we prize so highly are actually painted glass. Glass painting can produce some exceptional results, which compare favorably with traditional stained glass.

Glass painting has been around for centuries, and with modern glass paint compounds, a skilled artist can create a “stained glass” appearance with glass paint. Today’s glass paint contains none of the hazardous materials that traditional stained glass windows contain. A compound like Glassprimer™ glass paint bonds permanently to the glass surface without the need for heat curing, and will not chip, fade or peel, even when exposed to direct sunlight.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. Glassprimer™ glass paint can be used in both interior and exterior applications and can help reduce solar heat gain in some applications. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Just1Snap, via Flickr.com

Backpainted Glass The Easy Way

Backpainted Glass The Easy Way

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Backpainted Glass The Easy Way

Backpainted Glass The Easy Way

Backpainted glass is certainly a trendy look, but having it made and shipped to you can be expensive and frustrating. Shipping glass isn’t easy. In fact, it’s downright hard. Shipped glass can have a breakage rate of as much as 30%. In many cases, breakage is a result of improper packaging or improper handling.

Flat glass can also pick up “stains” when it is shipped. Stains come from dampness that is absorbed by the packaging or deposited on the glass. While stains can be removed, the process of removing them may shorten the life of the glass.

Rather than having glass backpainted and shipped to you, you can make your own backpainted glass. You’ll achieve results that are better, you’ll spend less and your glass can be ready to mount in just a matter of hours.

With Glassprimer™ glass paint, you can also have your paint tinted to match the paint palette of virtually any major paint manufacturer. You can integrate glass paint seamlessly into your decorating plan.

Backpainted glass works well in the kitchen, but you can install backpainted glass in any room in your home. It also works well in commercial spaces and offices.

Each gallon of Glassprimer™ glass paint provides coverage for about 256 square feet of glass. You can apply Glassprimer™ glass paint using a brush or roller, but we recommend that you use a high-volume, low pressure paint sprayer. You’ll get exceptional coverage and use less paint.

Each gallon of Glassprimer™ glass paint is a low-VOC product, so you can safely use it for indoor or outdoor applications. In addition to our oil-based formulation, we also make a water-based formulation that’s environmentally friendly and easy to clean up.

If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

<9i>Photo Credit: Jean Wang, via Flickr.com