Firstly, two things about me. Two of my biggest fears are (1) spiders (duh!) AND a very rational fear of stepping on broken glass. Because of the latter fear it has taken me a long time to find the gumption to go through with this long-awaited project. But today was that day to face my fear.

I’ve wanted to handcraft glass frames for pressed flowers for quite awhile now. But just the thought of cutting glass in my kitchen (which is my primary workplace) and later on finding tiny shards of glass in my feet left me a bit paralyzed.

But driven by a strong curiosity about not just the outcome but especially for the creative process I pushed through it and finally attempted it.

I bought this glass cutter from Amazon. It’s a very simple and straightforward tool and it comes with two of the exact same instrument. I read up on it and you’re supposed to be able to pour oil into the instrument and it bleeds out while you’re working to prevent shards. However some people said it didn’t work for them so I decided to skip it and proceed anyway.

I had some old panes of glass on hand from thrifted picture frames. It’s cheaper than hardware glass and in smaller sheets which makes it easier, depending on your project.

Finally, I had bought some copper tape along with the cutters. This tape is beautiful and I’m kind of obsessed with it (maybe because it’s copper). From this point in my process I’ve found that it works well to seal the edges of glass to prevent cuts. It may help with the soldering process but I won’t find that out until part two of this post.

After cleaning the glass I measured it and make tiny marks with a marker to know my spacing since I wanted to get four pieces out of a 12 inch piece.

I then had to use my sewing ruler to ensure that I’m cutting on a straight line. You may want to apply to tape to the ruler so it holds to the glass and doesn’t slip while you’re cutting.

Once you have the glass and ruler securely in place and are ready to cut, apply the tiny diamond to the glass. This was the hardest part for me. Cutting glass makes me super nervous and I was pretty awkward with the tool the first few times. Once you feel it catch on the edge of the glass you apply firm pressure as you score it all the way down the glass. If it sounds like bacon sizzling then you know you’re doing it right.

Also, in this picture I was awkwardly off to the side of the ruler. Don’t be like me.

Here’s a cool trick. Put a wooden dowel or chopstick directly under your cut glass. Then tap the shortest side of your cut. If you cut correctly then the glass will cleanly break.

Use copper tape to seal up the sides of your cut glass. My tape is 1/2 inch thick and for smaller pieces I was able to conserve some of my tape by cutting it in half, lengthwise.

This is my very first piece. It gets easier the more you do. I think they’re really pretty just like this but I can’t resist the chance to try soldering so that will be included in my next post.