Stained glass is a pretty wild art form. It’s a mix of careful planning, hot metals, and literally breaking things on purpose. There are no shortcuts, and everything is done entirely by hand. Here is a quick look at how a flat sheet of glass turns into a finished piece:

• The Blueprint: Every piece starts with a sketch. Once the design is locked in, it’s turned into a pattern—kind of like a giant, complicated jigsaw puzzle.

• Scoring & Snapping: Here’s the fun part. The glass is hand-scored with a glass cutter and snapped into individual puzzle pieces.

• The Grind: Raw cut glass is sharp and doesn't always break perfectly. Every single edge gets run across a diamond-bit grinder to smooth it out and make sure the pieces fit together snugly.

• Foiling & Soldering: The edges of each piece are wrapped in a thin copper foil tape and pieced back together.Then, we break out the hot soldering iron to melt metal over the copper, fusing the whole thing into one solid piece.

• The Final Polish: After a good scrub down, a chemical patina is often applied to the silver solder lines to turn them a rich, deep black or copper. Add a final polish, hang it up, and let the sun do the rest!