stamping on a curved glass surface-help please

[barbaranne_stamps]

I need to do a project asap to help my mother-in-law out. She has 2 dozen curved (concave) glass picture frames that need to be decorated and given as teacher gifts. I have several problems:
- how to stamp on the concave surface (this is the indented part of the curve)
- how to stamp on glass
- not much time (I'm packing up grandad's apartment, helping someone to move, have 3 SU workshops, make my own Christmas cards, gifts, and do more shopping, wrapping, cleaning, cooking, oh, and find time to meet my soon-to-be Goddaughter before her baptism-have to do all this in the next 15 days!)

The original plan was to use the apple or crayon from Crayon Cuties and use etching cream. She though it would etch the actual image, but we have since found out that it would etch aound the design instead, leaving a circle (or whatever shape we choose) around the apple. She just wanted the image on the glass and nothing around it.

Another thought I had was using stazon to stamp the image and color it in. I only have black stazon and would not know what to use to color it in. I have sharpies and some glass markers, but none in red, only pastel metalics (blue, lavendar, green, pink). I suppose I could have her go to the craft store to purchase that.

Now, I have seen my aunt stamp on the outside of glass balls using a very tiny stamp, but I have no clue how to stamp the concave part, and I don't want to remove the stamp from the wood block.

ANY suggestions are GREATLY appreciated. THANK YOU!

[albrennick]

Okay, this is only a suggestion as I have never done it. could you stamp with versamark on like waxpaper and then transfer the image by flipping it over and rubbing it on?? Then you could emboss with whatever color you choose. If you try it with the versamark and it dosn't work you can just wash it off, before embossing of course. It might work since it is such a simple image!! Well Good Luck to you!!! :?

Al

[barbaranne_stamps]

Thanks! I'll try that.

I was just checking back to ask another question: can I emboss with red embossing powder on the glass. Will it stick?

[rbubar]

If there is room for the stamp to fit, try stamping and rolling your wrist: moving from left to right, stamp the left edge and roll your wrist to the right until the image is completely stamped. This is how I do terracotta pots. Practice by putting paper over the frame first. It takes a couple tries but you can get very nice images on curved surfaces this way. You could do this with the Staz-On and color with Sharpies. HTH

[JanTInk]

When I stamp on a curved glass surface, this is how I do it:

Have on hand some alchohol and keep a paper towel saturated with a little. OR, even better, have some of those alchohol wipes that diabetics use to prep their injection site. I had gestational diabetes when I had my first pregnancy and had a ton left over that I am still using up (and this was ten years ago!) You can buy them at the drug store.

Ink your stamp up with Stazon and lay it face up on the table. Make sure it's not going to move; put some of that shelf liner under it if you've got it.

Look through the glass and carefully touch the object to one side of the image and roll the glass over the image, rolling with the curve of the glass.

Now, keep in mind that you will goof up often. It's inevitable. You just grab your alchohol wipe and remove the goof from the glass, let it dry (takes a few seconds) and try again. It takes patience!

[Tinnalee]

Concave stamping sounds like it will be trickier than convex. What about those spongy-type stamps that you can get at Michael's. I think they're over by the stencils and are used mainly for decorating or for children's projcts. They usually have bold images and might have enough "give " with the surface to do really well on concave glass.

An additional benefit to this would be that the image would presumably be darker at the edges and less intense toward the middle. This is the effect I try for in watercoloring.