Etching Project

So, in the spirit of being frugal this year, we decided to try some new things and make some presents.  Ruthie graduated this year, and I decided to try out etching.  I’d seen it done here on Young House Love, so I thought I’d give it a try.  I wanted to get her something cool and Mizzou, so I went with Mizzou glasses…

I basically did exactly what they did on Young House Love, except I used duct tape instead of painters tape (b/c that’s what I had around).  It was a lot harder than I expected…

First, I went to Michaels and found this:

Then, because I have no confidence in being able to follow directions, or in things working out quite right, I did a lot of testing…

First, on this poor candle holder… now it says “Liz,” “M,” and “W” all over it.

After I figured out how the etching cream worked, I wandered around Michaels some more, trying to figure out what to use as the stencil.  I was afraid tape wouldn’t hold up well enough, and I was hoping to find something I could reuse.  I started with this adhesive foam.  I also wasn’t sure what I wanted to put on the glasses, I thought the giant M would be good, so I printed one off, traced around it, and then cut it out with my craft knife (which I actually already had).

And then I started testing with one of our glasses. 

On went the stencil,

on went the etching cream, and I waited 5 minutes.

Yeah, not such a success.  The M was wonky because the glass wasn’t straight up, so it was impossible to get the stencil straight.  And the foam totally didn’t work.  So, yeah, I decided to give the duct tape a try.  And I decided the M wasn’t going to be the best, so I decided to do MIZZOU up the side of the glass. 

I printed the Mizzou on cardstock and cut it out.  Then I stuck duct tape to the cutting board, and used masking tape to keep the stencil on top.  Then it was back to the craft knife. 

The Mizzou up the side was a much better design, and worked way better.  So I decided I was ready to try it on some actual glasses.  I wanted some that were straight up and down, and that looked cool on their own.  I totally scored when I found these glasses at TJ Maxx.  I thought they looked really cool, and they were straight, which was AWESOME… makes getting the stencil on much easier!

So, I started cutting out the real stencils.  Which took forever, because I was kind of anal about imperfections, and it’s really hard to do that much cutting and not make one mistake, never mind getting it off the cutting board without stretching or tearing any of the little pieces.

But, slowly, I got the stencils made, and on the glasses they went…

…and on went the etching cream.

I ended up only waiting 3 minutes on the last 3, because the edges on the first one got a little fuzzy, and I think it was because the cream was starting to ooze under the tape.  The 3 minute ones looked better. 

Anyway, the final project looked like this:

Not perfect, but still pretty cool looking.  I wouldn’t be embarrassed to have them in my cabinet!  And I think Ruthie likes them alright… they were on her shelf the next time I visited her house, anyway! :)

Anyway, it was a lot of effort, but it was totally worth it… and congrats to Ruthie!!  Hopefully I’ll have some good graduation pictures soon!