This week I finally did a craft I have had on my to do list for ages. Seriously, I have a glass etching kit that I bought somewhere (Michael’s probably) that I am pretty sure was packed up as part of our move to Kelowna seven years ago.
I recently signed up to take part in Cricut Craftfest – it was a four days of receiving video links via email of different crafts that could be made with the Cricut machine. Over all there were only about three or four videos that I watched but one was from a blogger (Neli Designs)about glass etching. She’s based in Quebec (I assume because she is French but she could be from anywhere in Canada really) and I picked up some great tips from her video – including where to actually find glass etching cream in Canada.
If you are having trouble locating the cream: on the Home Depot app or website, enter the product and store location and then click on the product. It will tell you which isle and which section in the isle to find it. Once you have it, pick up some foam brushes and some gloves & eye protection – this stuff is corrosive!
The hardest part with this craft was deciding what to try the process on. I ended up choosing an up-cycled Kombucha bottle (how very West Coast of me lol).
I used my Cricut Explore Air2 cutting machine to find a simple design and printed it on some removable vinyl (handy way to use up scraps or colours you don’t like anymore).
After sticking the design to my recycled bottle I was ready to go.
Here’s my process in case you have also been curious about glass etching:
1. Set up in the garage. This seems like the best spot: lots of room, pretty ventilated (aka is not insulated and has lots of spots where the outside air gets in), put a sytro-foam tray from recycling, but newspaper or card board would also work as a protective layer on the work surface.
The stencil should already be applied to your project. Use painters tape to tape off any area you don’t want to be etched. I covered the rim of the bottle, which also gave me something to hold while applying the cream.
2. Safety first! Gloves & glasses should be on. This product has a poison and corrosive indicator on it. Take no chances and wear the protective gear.
3. Applied the layer of etching cream. I ended up having to do this several times and can still see a few un-etched spots and some streaks from uneven application. Really glop this stuff on, it seems like this is not a craft where you should be neat and tidy during the creation phase.
4. Set a timer for 20 minutes. When the time is up scrape excess cream back in to the tub (if you want) and then wash the rest off. This is when you check for coverage coverage and repeat as needed. The painters tape may also need to be reapplied, for my project the water loosened the tape so I needed to retape each time.
5. Once you have the coverage you need, peel off the vinyl stencil and the painters tape and enjoy your creation!
Tip: Start with something flat. A bottle was probably more challenging as a first project than expected.
Outside in Kelowna 