Stained Glass Projects for Beginners Book Review: 31 Weekends Worth Trying?

One Workshop In and I Already Wanted More

Here’s the thing about taking a stained glass class: it’s just enough to hook you. You get a taste of cutting glass, pressing copper foil down the edges, running a soldering iron along a seam, and then it’s over. You go home and you either forget about it or you start Googling how to do it yourself. I fell into the second camp pretty hard.

After one beginner workshop, I picked up Stained Glass Projects for Beginners: 31 Projects to Make in a Weekend by Lynette Wrigley and decided to see how far I could get on my own at home. No instructor nearby. No studio. Just the book, whatever tools I’d managed to cobble together, and a dining room table I was absolutely willing to risk.

What I wanted to know before I cracked it open: Are these projects actually beginner-friendly, or is that just marketing? Does the book tell you what supplies you need, or does it assume you already have a fully stocked studio? And can a person who has only touched a glass cutter once in their life produce something that looks decent at the end?

Spoiler: I finished a project. And it looks like something I’d hang in a window. Check the current price on the product page here if you want to follow along with this one yourself.

What’s Actually Inside the Book

The book is a paperback published by IMM Lifestyle, written by Lynette Wrigley, and it came out in February 2019. The full title is Stained Glass Projects for Beginners: 31 Projects to Make in a Weekend and that “31 projects” count is real. There’s a legitimate range of things to make in here.

The instruction format is step-by-step throughout. That’s not a vague promise. Each project walks you through the process in a structured way, which matters when you’re still learning how to hold a cutter correctly and figure out why your solder keeps beading up instead of flowing smooth.

The techniques covered include both copper foil and leaded window panels. That’s two different construction methods, which means the book has real range. Copper foil is the Tiffany-style method where you wrap each piece of cut glass in adhesive foil tape and then solder the seams. Leaded glass is the older method using lead came to hold pieces together in a frame. Most beginners start with copper foil because the learning curve is a bit gentler, and the book accounts for that by including both types of projects so you can work up from simple to more involved.

Projects include frames, lightcatchers, and window panels. Lightcatchers are the small, decorative pieces meant to hang in a window and catch sunlight. They’re perfect for beginners because they’re small, the piece count is manageable, and the shapes are forgiving. That’s where I started.

The book has a 4.6-star rating across 763 reviews on Amazon. That’s a lot of people weighing in, and a score that high on a craft book with hundreds of reviews isn’t luck. People are finishing projects from this thing. That tells you something.

Choosing a Pattern When You’re Brand New

The first decision you make with this book is which project to attempt. That sounds easy until you flip through 31 options and realize some of them look significantly more complex than others. Straight lines and simple geometric shapes are your friends at the beginning. Curves are where beginners lose their minds. And anything with tight inside curves, tiny pieces, or multiple sharp angles is going to punish you until your cutting skills catch up.

I went with one of the simpler patterns. Not the simplest thing in the book, but close to it. The reasoning was practical: if I tried something ambitious and botched it, I’d have wasted glass, time, and whatever scraps of confidence I had coming out of that one workshop. Starting modest and finishing successfully beats starting bold and quitting halfway.

The book’s step-by-step structure helped with this decision because you can flip to a project and assess, from the instructions and pattern complexity, roughly how many pieces you’re working with and what shapes are involved. That kind of visual literacy builds fast when you’re looking at it through the lens of “do I have to cut a circle? because I really don’t want to cut a circle yet.”

Circles, by the way, are hard. Avoid them until you’ve had practice. The book does include some patterns with curved elements, which are beautiful, but those are not your first project. Be with yourself about where you are in the skill progression and start conservatively. You can always go back for the harder ones later.

The Supply List Nobody Warns You About

Here’s where a lot of beginners hit their first wall: the book teaches the technique, but it doesn’t come with tools. And stained glass requires a specific set of supplies that most people don’t have lying around the house.

At minimum, you need a glass cutter, running pliers or breaking pliers, copper foil tape (if you’re doing the copper foil method), solder, a soldering iron, flux, flux brush, and some form of glass grinder if you want clean edges on irregular cuts. That last one is optional but makes everything easier. Glass itself costs extra, obviously.

The book does cover what you need to get started, which is helpful. But going in expecting the book alone to be a turnkey solution is a setup for frustration. Think of the book as the blueprint and the tools as a separate purchase. If you’ve already taken a workshop and have access to even a partial tool set, you’re in a much better position. If you’re starting truly from scratch with no prior exposure and no tools, the book alone won’t get you far.

That’s not a knock on the book. It’s just the nature of stained glass as a craft. It requires real tools. The book tells you what those are and how to use them, but stocking your setup is on you.

The workshop I’d taken beforehand gave me familiarity with the tools even if I didn’t own all of them yet. That context made the book’s instructions click faster. If your starting point is zero exposure, I’d suggest taking even a single class before using this book solo at home. You’ll get more out of it.

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What the Process Looked Like From My Dining Room Table

Following the book’s instructions at home is a different experience than doing it in a workshop. In a class, there’s an instructor who can glance at your foiling technique and tell you that you’re pressing too hard or that your seam is too thin. At home, it’s just you, the book, and whatever troubleshooting instinct you’ve managed to develop so far.

The step-by-step format helps with this. Wrigley structures the instructions clearly enough that you’re not left wondering what comes next. You cut your pieces, grind the edges to fit your pattern, clean them thoroughly, wrap them in copper foil, press and crimp the foil edges, flux the seams, and then solder. Each stage is distinct and the book walks you through them in order.

The soldering was the part I was most anxious about going into my first solo project. Soldering stained glass is a specific technique where you build up smooth, rounded beads of solder along the foiled seams. Too much heat and the solder runs flat and messy. Too little and it doesn’t flow at all. Coming from one workshop, my soldering was not perfect. There’s a learning curve here that no book can fully shortcut. But the instructions gave me enough to work with that the finished seams were functional and,, better looking than I expected for a first attempt.

The final piece came together. It wasn’t flawless. But it was done, it held together, and when I held it up to a window, the light came through exactly the way stained glass is supposed to. That moment makes all the tedious foiling and the slightly crooked cuts worth it.

That’s a big deal for a beginner working solo at home with one workshop’s worth of experience. The book got me there.

The Part Most Reviews Skip Over

The “weekend project” framing on the cover deserves a real conversation. Technically, yes, you can complete one of the simpler projects in a weekend. But the timeline assumes your tools are already on hand, your glass is already cut, and you’re not stopping to re-read instructions six times or re-foil a piece you didn’t get right the first time.

As a beginner doing this for the second time ever, my first solo project took longer than a clean weekend. Cutting glass takes longer when you’re still figuring out your scoring pressure. Foiling takes longer when your hands aren’t used to it yet. And troubleshooting takes time that no project timeline accounts for.

None of that makes the book misleading. It just means the “weekend” framing is aspirational for a true beginner. Give yourself more time on your first project and don’t treat the timeline as a challenge. The point isn’t to finish fast. The point is to finish, learn from the process, and end up with something you made with your own hands.

The other thing most reviews don’t mention is the foiling step. It sounds minor but it’s actually one of the most time-consuming and tedious parts of copper foil work. You’re wrapping sticky foil tape around the edge of each individual piece of glass, one at a time, then pressing it flat against both faces and crimping the corners. If you have a project with a lot of small pieces, this step alone can take hours. The book covers it, but knowing upfront that this is where your patience gets tested helps you plan accordingly.

And the cleanup. Nobody talks about flux residue. After soldering, you need to clean the flux off the finished piece with a flux remover or the residue will eventually cause corrosion. The book includes this in the process, which is responsible of it, but it’s one of those steps that beginners sometimes skip because they’re excited about being done. Don’t skip it.

Who This Book Makes Sense For

If you’ve taken a beginner class and you’re trying to figure out what’s next, this book is a genuinely solid resource. The class gives you the muscle memory and the basic vocabulary. The book gives you 31 reasons to keep practicing.

It also works well for someone who is self-teaching with the help of online videos and wants a structured project guide alongside the tutorials. The book gives you patterns and a clear workflow. The videos give you visual reference for technique. Together they cover a lot of ground.

People who like crafts with visible, tangible outcomes are going to connect with this. Stained glass gives you something to hang on a window and look at every day. That’s a different satisfaction than, say, finishing a knitting project and stuffing it in a drawer. The decorative result is part of the appeal, and the book has enough variety in the project types that you can make things that fit your actual home.

It’s also a strong fit for the GenX woman who took a class on a whim, got completely hooked, and needs something to channel that energy between sessions. You know who you are. The book is for you.

Where it doesn’t work as well: someone expecting a complete beginner course in book form. The instructions are clear, but they’re not a substitute for hands-on guidance. If you’ve never held a glass cutter, starting solo with just this book is a steeper climb. You can do it, but the process will involve more trial and error, more broken glass, and more frustration than if you went in with even a little prior experience.

Stained Glass Books vs. Just Watching YouTube

Fair question: why a book at all when there are hundreds of stained glass tutorials on YouTube? It’s a real trade-off and worth thinking through before you buy.

YouTube’s advantage is obvious. You can watch someone solder in real time, pause it, rewind, see exactly what the technique looks like. That kind of visual guidance is hard to replicate in print. For the mechanical parts of stained glass, specifically scoring, breaking, and soldering, video instruction genuinely has an edge.

But here’s where the book wins: structure and patterns. YouTube doesn’t hand you a 31-project roadmap with pre-drawn, correctly scaled patterns you can trace and cut. You’d have to find individual tutorials, figure out which ones are genuinely beginner-level, hunt down pattern files separately, and piece together your own learning sequence. The book does that curatorial work for you. The patterns are already there. The project progression makes sense.

The smart move, which is what I ended up doing, is using both. The book for project selection, patterns, and overall workflow. YouTube for technique reinforcement when a step isn’t clicking from the written description alone. They complement each other rather than compete.

A printout or PDF tutorial you found online isn’t going to give you 31 tested, organized, beginner-specific projects in a logical sequence. That’s the book’s real value proposition, and at the current price you can check on the product page, it’s a pretty low-stakes investment compared to what you’ll spend on tools and glass.

What I’d Tell Myself Before Starting

Get your tools sorted before you open the book to a project page. Nothing kills momentum like getting excited about starting and then realizing you don’t have the right pliers or you’ve run out of copper foil. Make a proper supply list from the book’s materials section and get everything in hand first.

Start with the most forgiving pattern you can find. Not the third-easiest or the one that looks only a little bit complex. Start at the true beginner end of the spectrum, finish something, and let that win give you the confidence to attempt the next level up. It sounds obvious but the temptation to start with something beautiful and ambitious is real and it will humble you fast.

Buy extra glass. You will break pieces. You will cut the wrong line. You will score a piece and have it snap in the wrong place. Budget for waste from the start and you won’t feel demoralized when it happens, because it’s going to happen.

The foiling step takes longer than you think. Build that into your time expectation and don’t rush it. Poorly foiled edges show up in the finished piece and in how well your solder adheres.

And clean your flux. Every time. It’s not optional, even if the project looks done and you’re tempted to just be finished already.

Last thing: take a photo of your finished piece before you do anything else with it. The first thing you make with your own hands in a new craft deserves documentation. Even if it’s not perfect. Especially if it’s not perfect.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need prior experience to use this book?

The book is designed for beginners, but some prior exposure helps. I had one workshop before using it and that context made the instructions easier to follow. If you have zero experience, expect a steeper learning curve and consider pairing the book with YouTube tutorials for the hands-on technique parts.

Does the book include patterns I can trace and use?

Yes. The patterns are part of what makes this book useful versus just watching tutorials. You get ready-to-use designs across all 31 projects, which saves you the step of hunting down or drafting your own patterns when you’re still learning the craft.

What techniques does the book cover?

It covers both copper foil and leaded glass methods, along with project types including lightcatchers, frames, and window panels. Most beginners start with the copper foil projects, which is the Tiffany-style technique, and the book has plenty of those.

Can I realistically finish a project in a weekend?

For the simpler projects, yes, if your tools are already gathered and you have some prior experience. As a true beginner, expect your first project to take longer than a weekend. The steps take more time when you’re learning them simultaneously. Don’t stress the timeline and focus on finishing, not speed.

Is the Kindle version worth getting instead of the paperback?

For a craft book you’re actively working alongside, the paperback is more practical. You want to be able to prop it open on your work surface, flip to a pattern page, and reference the steps without a screen going dark. The Kindle version is cheaper, but working with a tablet in a soldering and glass-cutting environment isn’t ideal.

What tools do I need before I start?

At minimum: a glass cutter, breaking or running pliers, copper foil tape, solder, a soldering iron, flux, and a flux brush. A glass grinder makes edge work much cleaner and is worth having if you’re serious about continuing the craft. The book covers the materials you need, so check that section before you buy anything.

Learn more

Stained Glass Projects for Beginners

Get the best price on Amazon →

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