Christmas Crafting!

I openly admit that I'm a Pinterest addict.  It's like heaven for me.  One place to share, collect, and organize endless data, it's genius!  Sometimes I have to take a break from it because my mind goes on overload with a billion of projects I want to try.  Here is a craft that I stumbled upon when I allowed myself a few hours to get back in touch with Pinterest after a short hiatus...

Glass etching.
As my friend, Amanda, and I found out, the opportunities are endless (pyrex dishes with your last name as Make It and Love It shows, wine glasses as Happily After All shows, and beer mugs as The Yummy Life shows).  For Christmas gifts, I wanted to make beer mugs for the uncles and wine glasses/cocktail glasses for the aunts (I'll get to those later).  Does that give the impression that my family likes to drink?

This was my first attempt at etching and the tutorials I found were great! The tips and tricks helped to get the etching just right, although it's really not a hard thing to do.  The hardest part was finding the etching cream (Hobby Lobby came to the rescue!).

Materials

Etching cream (Armour Etch worked great)
Contact paper (or any sticky paper to make the stencils) or etching stencils
Glass (dollar stores have a lot of glass items, SCORE!)
Rubbing Alcohol
Gloves
Paper Towels

1. Wipe the glass clean with rubbing alcohol to make sure any residue on the glass is removed.

2. Prepare your stencil.  I used a Cricut machine to cut the letters onto contact paper.  This worked really well as it adhered to the glass and didn't allow any cream to sneak underneath.

3.  Once the stencil is applied to the glass, apply etching cream to the glass and allow it to set for 5-10 minutes (I did 10 minutes to make sure I got a good etch).

What can't a droid do?

 4.  Put on gloves and run the glass under warm water to remove the cream.  Peel off the stencil and wipe the etch with rubbing alcohol again to remove any excess cream.

5. Admire your etched glass! Amazing, right?!

Go try it! It's easy and awesome! You can etch the glass on your fish tank, candle hurricanes, shot glasses, beer mugs, wine glasses, everyday drinking glasses, pyrex dishes (no one will ever be able to steal your pyrex dishes at the next party if your name is etched on it), and the list goes on...  Happy etching!