Precut glass shapes are available for use in creating designs. I'll post some sources for that later in the series. At this point, however, I’ll assume you’re cutting your own glass for your stepping stones.
Lay your individual pattern pieces on your stained glass. Either keep the pattern and glass with the right side up and facing you – or – put the pattern and the glass with the wrong side up and facing you. Be consistent. What you do with one, do with all. You might want to pay particular attention to any pattern or wave in the glass and lay your pieces out to capture that perfect swirl. For example, if you’re cutting out a flower, you may want the pattern in the petals to compliment each other or flow from one petal to another. The same goes for leaves. Don’t cut one piece with the pattern in the glass flowing across the leaf in an east-west direction and another with the flow of the glass going north-south. Of course, you may want that effect with certain patterns. Just be aware of these considerations as you lay your pattern out.
If you’d like, use a little spray adhesive or a touch of a glue stick to hold your pattern in place. Draw around the pieces and copy the piece number on to the glass with your marking pen. I try to remember to write the number on the side of the glass that will be facing up when the stone in complete. It makes cleaning it off later much easier.
Using your glass cutter, cut out all the shapes. Grind any sharp edges or go over them gently with a grozing stone. Work very carefully and watch out for those sharp edges! Clean the marking pen off the edges of the glass, but keep the numbers there for now.
