Back-painted mirrored year painting

Over the past couple of years, I’ve made many pieces of back-painted glass. The truth is, I never get tired of them. They almost always yield great results and leave people asking, “wait, you made this?” (especially when there’s mirror paint involved).

My husband and I and his two siblings and their spouses all live in old houses. (Whew, that was a mouthful.) That’s three old houses, each built in the 1930s. Kinda weird how it all turned out that way. (And no, we don’t live down the street from one another.) Anyway, I love my old house. And I think they feel the same way about theirs, so I made these year paintings for my two brothers-in-law commemorating the years their houses were built.

First, I found a font I liked (this is Extra Ornamental No. 2) and printed out the year to my desired size IN REVERSE. As in mirror image. Any letters or numbers must be in reverse. Remember, you are painting the backs of the numbers. It also might help to print in a different color than the paint you intend to use, just to see things a little better. I knew I was going to use black paint, so I printed in red.

My print out was larger than one sheet of paper, so I tiled it and pieced it together with some masking tape.

I used a 8″x14″ “float” frame from Michael’s: the kind with two pieces of glass instead of the normal glass and backing. This is kind of a non-standard skinny size, but it works well to display four digits.

I cleaned one piece of the glass from the float frame really well with Windex until it was completely clean and streak free. Then I placed it on top of the print out and taped them together.

Then it was time to paint. I use acrylic craft paint for this. No special type. The new Martha Stewart line at Michael’s is really good stuff and is made to paint on glass (totally unpaid endorsement), but I’ve used many different types and everything has worked fine. The paint will be protected in the frame and won’t see a lot of wear.

Layer the paint very thinly. You will need multiple coats. After the initial coat, you may want to remove the paper from the glass and hold the glass up to the light to see if you missed any spots.

After the paint was dry, it’s important to very carefully and very gently CLEAN THE GLASS again around your painting. There will almost certainly be loads of handprints to get rid of.

When that is done, it is time for the Looking Glass spray paint. This is awesome stuff that turns clear glass into mirror glass when you spray it on the backside. Follow the directions on the can and let it dry thoroughly. When it’s fully dry, clean the back piece of glass, put the frame back together and admire your work!

Like I’ve noted before, the looking glass paint isn’t super clear like a new piece of mirror might be. The finish is murky and the reflections are somewhat dull, but I think it lends itself to an antique look.

So what if you don’t have an old house or don’t really care about the year a house was built? Try painting a birth year or an anniversary. (Or anything really.) Back-painted glass is definitely one of those gifts that looks more difficult than it actually is.