Glass etching

I have decided to blog this to make sure I remember how... because I am sure I have done etching before but can't remember much about it!  I think I used a glass cleaner then but that's all!

Anyway, this was not a hard project, easier if you have one of those cricket machine.  Here's for people who don't.

Materials:

Pyrex or any glassware you want to etch
Exacto knife
Contact paper
Pencil/pen
Stencil
Armour Etch(cream in cylinder shaped white container with blue label) sold at the craft store.  This bottle is kind of spendy so I recommend you use coupon :)

1. Wash the glassware. If there's a dirt stain where you want to etch, the spot will prevent it from getting the perfect design you wish to have.  Decide the design you want to have. 

2. Cut the contact paper according to the size of the stencil with the design.  You want to make it a little bigger than actual stencil.  It is permanently etched if you make a mistake...  Then put the contact paper on the glassware.  Make sure no bubbles!  It might mess up your design :) 

I did mine on the side of Pyrex.

3. Tape the stencil on top of the contact paper. Make sure stencil is not going anywhere.

4. Trace it with a pencil.  Oh... the cars pencil!

5. Now trace it with exacto knife.  In this picture, it shows that I tried doing it with stencil on, but it is much easier to do without.  Tracing it with a pencil is an extra step but worth it :)  Walk around a few times if it gets too much.  Well, that's what I had to do... haha

 Now this shows what it looks like after cutting the design out

6. Put the etching cream on.  Make sure not to miss any spot:)  Also, be careful not to accidentally spill it somewhere else.  It is permanent and will etch the glass away. 

7. Wait for 5-10min or longer.  Take the contact paper out and wash it off. 
*Point to consider.  Since I put it on the side, I needed to hold it on the side and waited for the whole time.  I did one on the side previous to this and failed horribly.  I just put the bottom down and let it drizzle...  Now our last name has a nice drooling mark! 
*If you have a cut or anything of the nature on your finger, this will hurt when you wash it off.  Don't touch. 

All done!  Here's the finished project.  Doesn't it look nice?  Perfect for Christmas present.

Crafty

Recently I have been feeling a little more crafty than I had been so I started to look for something I can make.  This year, my theme is to use what I already have so I started looking in the craft room.

I found wooden wreath and some fake flowers so I decided to make a valentine wreath.

This is what I made.

Valentine's Day wreath!!!

I don't care if there's an unneeded space between H and a or some typo... haha!  I LOVE this and put it on my front door.  Yay for me!  So basically, I took the flower and leaves out of the stems and inserted to the wreath.  When I knew for sure where each one should go, I used glue gun to secure them into places.  Very easy.  I am going to look some more to see what I can make with what I already have :)