There are few art forms in the world that have the beauty of stained glass. If you travel around the world, you will see breathtaking examples of stained glass throughout the world. It doesn't matter if you are in an old victorian home, a school, or a religious building, you can see wonderful examples of this spectacular art no matter where you go and where you are. Fortunately, this art form has stood the test of time as many artists continue to tradition of creating spectacular art pieces. Most folks are very intimidated when getting started in stained glass. After all, there is sharp glass and cutting involved, but its really not that difficult, even for a beginner. If you're a beginners, there only a few items that you need to get ahold of to do a very basic project. I think you'll be suprised at how easy it actually is.

One of the first thing you need to create something wonderful is the stained glass itself! If you want the best and most popular, you will want to go with Spectrum Stained Glass. Spectrum has a well deserved reputation of being very simple to work with, quality products, and their glass is very easy to get your hands on. It really doesn't matter if you're looking for blue or red, smooth or rough rolled, Spectrum has what you need and the color you need it in. The other advantage to using Spectrum is that most pattern software programs that you can work with have spectrum glass loaded in, so you can design your pattern using the available colors from Spectrum.

One of the first tools you want to invest in is a good stained glass cutting tool. The name is somewhat misleading because the tool doesn't do the actual cutting, it only scores the glass which you will break eventually. You can spend a little or a lot on a stained glass cutter and they will vary in size and shape. The traditional cutters will be ok for basically any job, but there are speciality ones for glass strips, to cut circles, or to trace stained glass designs.

A stained glass grinder is another lifesaver that most artists will invest in relatively quickly after they've started their first project and determined they are in it for the long haul. There are a number of grinders available for beginners that start at around fifty dollars or so. The purpose of the grinder is to smooth out any rough edges right after you've broke the glass with a rough cut. A glass grinder is likely something that you will put some money into early on, by no mean is it necessary to getting started. It just happens to be the tool that will often greatly speed up your work, and you can get it at a reasonable price.

Other than those tools, there are some minor supplies that you probably want to pickup when you progress. The best recommendation I can make is to buy a starters stained glass kit and that will give you all the small tools you need to get started. Once you are far enough along, you can also look into some handy tools like the ones that Morton Glass puts out. They have a number of tools that make the glass artists life a little easier. SO, there you have it.Sometimes when you look up at all the amazing glass produced by stained glass artists it's easy to get intimidated, always remember though that every needs to start at the beginning and as long as you keep practicing, then you will improve!