Etched Glass Bake ware

Etching glass is much easier than I anticipated!

My favorite wedding present that my husband and I received are a set of etched glass bake ware dishes. Etched into the bake ware is our last name which makes it wonderful to take to friends' houses or to potlucks knowing full well that our dishes WILL come back to us and there will be no question as to what exactly was ours.

A friend's wedding was coming up and I wanted to make a set for them. The whole process was MUCH easier than expected.

Materials needed: ~Glass baking ware (I prefer the kind with lids- much easier for transporting to potlucks!)

~stencil (mine was cut from Contact Paper)

~Etching Cream (which oddly enough you can't find at Joann's)

~a Popsicle stick (the etching cream said you needed it, but I didn't use it)

~a small Foam Brush (because apparently I have to use parentheses for each of these bullets)

Step One:

You will need to make your stencil. I went over to my sister's house who has a vinyl cutter and was able to easily cut the contact paper. If you have a sister like mine you can do that too. Or you can print out whatever design you want on simple printer paper and tape that to the inside of the glass baking ware. Then you apply the Contact Paper to the side you want to etch and using an Exacto knife, cut out your design. Simply remove whichever part of the Contact Paper you want to have etched and wall-a! You have your stencil cut and on the glass bake ware.

Step Two:

Using the foam brush, mix up the etching cream and apply a THICK coat on top of the stencil.

I thought it was funny that the etching cream will be repelled by the contact paper- it's the best stencil I've ever used!

Step Three: You wait. Depending on what type of glass etching cream you buy you should wait between 30 seconds and 5 minutes. I found that waiting longer was better...I think my patience wore out at around 5 minutes 30 seconds and that's when I removed the cream.

Step Four: Wash off the cream. If you are frugal and want this cream to stretch farther you can simply use your brush to wipe most of the cream off and put back into the container for future use. I was apprehensive to do this the first time around but then realized how much was WASTED and quickly changed my ways.

I even took pictures the second time around. The "M" still has the thick layers of cream on it, and I have wiped off most of the excess from the other letters.

To wash off the cream you can just stick it under the faucet. Again, I was sooo nervous to do this because I didn't want the power of the faucet to "wash-off" my design. Yeah, that's not going to happen. I just like to worry.

Oh, and the cream doesn't just "wash-off" all that easily. You have to kind of help it along. Don't be worried, you're not going to mess up the design. (another worry of mine)

Here's some pictures of what it looks like after wash and before pulling off the stencil. I was SO worried that I had washed the etching right off!! As long as you don't worry you will be fine...or if you do worry it will still be fine ;)
The last step is to pull off the stencil or Contact Paper. Luckily Contact Paper doesn't leave a residue, but if your stencil does leave a residue then you can just wash the glass with soap to get it off.

Once you have etched them, the dishes will still be dishwasher safe.

Sooo, I either didn't take a picture of the finished product, or I didn't upload the picture I had taken of the finished product. Instead I have a picture of another glass object that has been etched using the same process.

Have fun with glass etching, I have many more etched glass projects I'm dying to try...you can really let your imagination run wild with this one!

Erika