My amazingly talented friend Shanda (see my soap making and felting posts) taught a group of ladies glass etching a couple of weeks ago. The process is quick and easy. The product is beautiful!
Materials Needed:
- Glass for etching
- Etching cream (we used Etchall)
- Rubbing alcohol
- Paper towel
- Spatula
- Stickers, painters tape, or cut vinyl to create your design
- Transfer paper may be useful to transfer intricate designs to your glass.
Instructions:
- Clean your glass using the rubbing alcohol and paper towel
- Create a design using stickers, painters tape, or vinyl. Shanda has a dye cutter and cut all of our initials for monograms using vinyl.
- We adhered the monograms to transfer paper, removed any part of the dye cut design we wished to be etched, adhered the vinyl directly to the glass. We then thoroughly rubbed on the design to make sure that it was well adhered. Any bubbles near the edge of the design would allow the etching cream to run into that bubble and create a less crisp edge. We also cut painters tape around our designs to give us a larger buffer in case the etching cream ran.
- Next, we applied the etching cream on the vinyl next to the design. We then used a spatula to evenly drag a thick layer of cream across the design.
- Allow the etching cream to work for the specified period of time (15 minutes in our case). Scrape off the access cream and replace it in the jar (it is reusable). Wash the glass and remove the stickers. Voila!
- We also monogrammed mosaic tiles to create pendents. The etched glass didn’t show up as clearly on the colored tile, so we added Rub n’ Buff to add a little contrast.
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: 1 hour for 4 jars
Overall Experience: Good
