As you will see in these photos, it has been very chilly in New York recently.  The snow and cold weather hasn’t bothered me, but what does get to me is all the grey…it’s just so incredibly blah.  To brighten things up, I decided to add a pop of color to the dreary window view I’ve been looking out for the past couple weeks. With just a few materials, I created this faux stained glass window treatment.  It turned out much more vibrant than I had imagined – the way the light comes through the gels is gorgeous, and at night (with help from the street lights) it shoots a perfect reflection of the heart up onto the bedroom ceiling (continue on to the bottom of the post for that photo!).

Materials Needed:

• Butcher Paper
• Scissors
• Dry Erase Marker
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Photo Gels (or colored tissue paper)
• Black tape

Directions:

Step #1: To start, fold a piece of butcher paper in half and cut out a heart. Trim the heart to fit the width of your window.  Center the paper heart on your window (using a couple pieces of tape to hold in place) and trace around the edge of the heart with a dry erase marker.

Step #2: Gently pull the heart off the window and remove any remaining tape. Using a ruler and a pencil, make straight lines to form triangles across the body of the heart. Next color code each triangle, so that no two colors are adjacent.

Step #3: Once you’ve color-coded each triangle, place the specific gel over and trace the triangle using your dry erase marker. [Note: If you’re using tissue paper, cut out each triangle from your initial paper heart template and use that as a template to cut out each triangle from the tissue paper.]

Step #4: Once you’ve cut all of the shapes out of the gels, arrange them on a flat surface to ensure they all fit correctly.

Step #5: Working with one piece at a time, begin fitting the individual shapes into your heart outline on the window. Add black tape between each adjacent triangle to secure the pieces to the window.  When you go to secure the edge pieces, wipe off the dry erase marker before you tape the piece down. [Note: You’ll quickly begin to notice how much more vibrant (and less primary) these gel colors look with light shining through them!]

Once you’ve taped all of the interior pieces to the window, add black tape around the outside border of the heart to resemble a frame.  And voilà – a stained glass heart!

(above photo taken at night!)