glass etching

 I thought it would be a cheap, personal, cute gift idea this Christmas to etch class with families names on it and fill it with Christmas goodies. Since I've never done any glass etching I decided I should start with my last name and make my mom a present first (sorry for ruining the surprise!). It really wasn't hard at all! The most time consuming part was cutting out the letters/tracing them/cutting them out again which would easily be done with a Cricut but since I don't have one, I'll resort to old school ways.

initially getting the supplies can be expensive but they'll last me for awhile. the vinyl was at the craft store in the Cricut accessories isle for $5, the x-acto knife also $5, and the armour etch cream $12. I got the glass jar at Target for $6

like I said above, the longest part was cutting the letters out. Here are the letters I cut out from a simple word document that I typed my name and I traced them onto the vinyl

 the vinyl was super big so theres plenty more to use for future projects. I could've saved more room by cutting it closer to the actual letters but once I put the cream on, you want some room for the cream to spread without touching the outer glass.

this picture is the process of cutting the letters out of the vinyl with an x-acto knife, leaving negative space

once completed I placed the whole piece of cut-out-vinyl onto the jar

 spread the cream pretty thick onto the jar and let sit for 10 or so minutes. **this cream takes off a layer of glass, so imagine what it will do to your skin! it has warnings on the bottle to call poison control in the case of any contact, so I went on ahead and wore some leftover gloves from nursing school I had lying around

after 10 minutes I rinsed the cream off and then rubbed off the remainder with my (gloved) finger then removed the vinyl and ta-da! It's not perfect but it's a first attempt!