This week is
going to be a fun one! We picked a shade called “Champagne Beach” by Tarte and
it’s a gold sparkly shade which I’d love to try out. So sparkly, so gorgeous!
We are going to do something that we have never tried before and that’s glass
etching.
Inspired by
our shade of the week, we are going to try glass etching on champagne glasses.
Before even
starting, we went on a field trip and bought some champagne glasses (we were
surprised at how inexpensive they were and such good quality too). We also
picked up a glass etching cream by Folk Art. You can buy some stencils (sticky
ones are good for this) or you can do what we are doing and that is to make
your own (we are doing this in a couple of different ways).
When we got
home we thought up some designs for these glasses. We bought six of them so we
are going to try out a variety of techniques and designs. We went with some
more generic and Summery designs that can be enjoyed at any time but this would
be a fun project for weddings and bridal showers as well. In our research we
saw lots of initials etched, but that might be better with a bought stencil as
nice lettering is harder to cut freehand like we are doing to make some of our
stencils.
We printed a
turtle and seashell on sticky label paper and cut them out like this...
Another way
to put a design on a glass is by creating a design with masking tape or painter’s tape...
To make
polka dots, we will use reinforcements on the glass.
As something
different, we wanted to make the entire glass have that etched look and then
make our design “clear” so we're punching out a couple of sizes of hearts (on
sticky labels or paper) and scattering them on the glass.
Before even
starting, please read the instructions on your glass etching kit/cream. Make
sure you are in a well ventilated area and have on something to protect your
clothing as well as rubber gloves and maybe even a mask. You don’t want to get this stuff
on your skin so make sure you are careful.
First of all
make sure you have a clean protected area to do your glass etching. Make sure
the glasses are wiped with rubbing alcohol and then washed with warm soap and
water.
Prepare your
glasses by laying out the designs.
Now apply
the glass etching cream to the areas on your glasses that you want. Remember
not to apply the etching cream to any areas of your glass that you don’t want
etched. Cover these areas and tape them off.
The etching
cream that we used was quite runny and thin compared to the thicker ones that
we saw on some video tutorials. We tried shaking it up but it still stayed very
runny so we applied a couple layers.
The first
layer was thinner so we patted it on and tried to make it as even as possible.
Since it was so runny, we had to lay the glasses down as they were drying so
that they didn’t drip. That didn’t work 100% for us though.
After the
layers have dried (for the brand of cream we used, it was about 15 minutes from the last layer that we applied) you can
run the glasses under room temperature water and wash off all of the etching
cream. This will also help loosen the stencils and tape that you applied on. Make
sure you wash the glasses really well before using them.
We were
pretty much happy with how they turned out. Some of the etching cream must have
run through our stencils or the stencils weren’t stuck down enough so you might
want to try a vinyl peel and stick style stencil or just make sure the stickers are
really stuck down. Or you might want to make sure that your etching cream is a
thicker one.
Overall, our
glass etching turned out quite well. At first we thought the etching was kind
of light but after leaving them a couple of days, we can actually see it quite
nicely on the glasses!
