After two weeks of waiting for all of my stained glass supplies to arrive, I finally picked up the last box from the post office. It was my beginner’s kit from Anything in Stained Glass, and I was finally ready to make my first piece.
Opening the kit was exciting. I had no idea what colors or textures of glass would be inside, and as I unpacked each sheet, it felt like a dozen different projects suddenly became possible.
I already had a pattern picked out. It was a frog design I had bought on Etsy that I modified to include a lily pad and a border. It looked simple enough, and I was convinced it would make the perfect first project.
It did not.
My First Attempt at Stained Glass
Making that first score on a piece of glass was surprisingly intimidating. Every step came with a new question. Was I pressing hard enough with the glass cutter? Too hard? How much pressure should I use with the breaking pliers? Was I pulling correctly with the grozing pliers?
Within an hour, I had broken about half of the pieces I needed for the frog and used almost all of my practice glass. I finally admitted defeat, set the pattern aside, and decided to start over with something much simpler.
I was discouraged. More than that, I felt something I had not experienced in a long time. Hopelessness. It felt like I would never figure it out and that every piece of glass I touched would just end up broken.
Logically, I knew I was not going to be great at stained glass on my first attempt. Nobody is. But I was confronted with an uncomfortable realization. Even though I knew I would be a beginner, I still expected myself to be a good beginner.
Learning Stained Glass Meant Learning to Be a Beginner Again
It was humbling, and it made me realize that I had not willingly put myself in a position to fail in my personal life for a long time.
I work in law enforcement, and failure is unavoidable. I have been pushed into situations that are unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and incredibly stressful. I have made mistakes, learned from them, and become better because of them. It is part of the job, and I have accepted that.
At home, though, I had done the opposite. Without realizing it, I have built my free time around things I already know I am good at or can do comfortably. After spending my workdays being challenged, making difficult decisions, and carrying a lot of responsibility, it felt natural to seek hobbies that were relaxing instead of intimidating.
The problem is that growth rarely happens inside that comfort zone. I had become so used to protecting my personal time from frustration that I had also protected myself from the satisfaction that comes from struggling through something new.
Failing at work and failing at home feel completely different. At work, mistakes come with pressure and real consequences. At home, the only thing at risk is my pride. That first project reminded me that there is a difference between surviving challenges and choosing them. I had spent years doing the first and almost no time doing the second.
Finishing My First Stained Glass Piece
After scrapping the frog, I chose a random beginner pattern from the book included in my kit. Because I had struggled so much with the concave and convex cuts on the frog, the simple rectangles in the sunset design suddenly felt easy by comparison. For the first time that day, I started to have fun.
I successfully cut every piece without breaking it, used my grinder to fit everything to the pattern, foiled each piece, and soldered it all together. Soldering was easily the hardest part of the process, but I eventually managed to make everything stick together.
The finished piece was pretty ugly, and it is not something I will be hanging in my house. The solder lines are uneven and lumpy, the glass is not perfectly cut, and the edges I tried to bead are anything but straight.
But every time I look at it, I smile.
That piece is my starting point. It is the one I will compare every future project to, and hopefully it will remind me just how much I have learned over time.
Mistakes I Made on My First Stained Glass Project
I can already point to a few mistakes that made my first project much harder than it needed to be.
The biggest one was choosing a pattern that was too ambitious. The frog looked simple enough, but I completely underestimated how difficult all of the curves would be for someone who had never cut glass before.
I also learned not to try to cut non continuous lines. More than once I tried to make several short scores on the same piece instead of committing to one smooth cut. Unsurprisingly, the glass usually had other plans.
When laying out my pattern pieces on the glass, I also made life harder for myself by placing them in awkward positions. A little more thought about where each piece sat on the sheet would have made several cuts much easier.
Soldering came with its own lessons. I was so focused on making perfectly straight solder lines that I kept going back to fix them. In most cases, every attempt to “correct” them only made them look worse. I also attempted to bead the edge. In theory, it was supposed to leave me with a smooth, finished border. In reality, I mostly succeeded in watching molten solder slide off the edge and splatter all over my piece. Turning down my solder iron probably would have helped.
Why I Am Excited to Keep Learning
I had so much fun making that first piece that I immediately started another one.
By the second project, I could already tell I had improved. My glass cutting was more confident, using the grinder felt more natural, and my soldering was noticeably better. I was still not happy with how I attached the hanging hooks, and I learned a valuable lesson about lead line placement, but that is what I chose to focus on instead. The lesson.
And that I am hooked.
I spend my days thinking about what I want to make next and looking around the house, realizing just how little window space we actually have. I have also decided that my family will all be getting stained glass for Christmas this year…and probably every Christmas after that.
A couple months ago, I probably would have spent this time scrolling through photos of someone else’s stained glass. Instead, I spent it making my own, and I like this version of my evenings a lot better.