Etched Wine Glass Tutorial

I always try to make very personal gifts for my friends. This means that few of them actually get their gifts in time as I start the project when inspiration comes. It also means that friends I have a particular challenge with friends I have had for a long time. I am constantly trying to one up myself and come up with the next coolest idea.

I have one friend that absolutely adores hats and slippers that I make, and the last several years have alternated between being a "hat year," or a "slipper year." I thought that she had quite enough of both to last her for a while, but then panicked because no new ideas were forthcoming. Then it dawned on me: personalized wine glasses.

This particular friend enjoys a nice relaxing glass of wine in the evenings and has some nice stemware, but I pounced on the opportunity to give her something cute and functional. Earlier in the year I had purchased supplies to do some embossing and supplies for etching glass. Add those to my Cricut, and I had everything I needed.

One of the tips I read about etching glass is to choose images that aren't too complicated. My friend is into horses like I am, so I chose a nice simple, but pretty running horse stamp for the image. Then I used my Old West cartridge to cut her name out of sticky vinyl, and I cut some straight edges to outline the area.

This is what they looked like when prepared:

I feel like I should take this time to note that stamping on curved glass (or any glass) is not as easy as it may seem. The image kept becoming either blurry because it would slip around, or it would not all be stamped. I cleaned the glasses off and started over about 40 times. Finally, I took the block off of the stamp (I was using an unmounted rubber stamp), got it nice and inky and curved it around the glass. The 41st time was the charm. Then I was able to apply the embossing powder, and had to blow it away gently as it sort of clung to the glass in some places. Still, I got it to work and used my heat gun to finish the job.

Then I applied the etching cream and went about my other business so I wouldn't stare at it and try to clean it off too soon. This was another tip I learned online about etching: they tell you to let it sit for 10 minutes, but that is never enough. Of course, if you let it go too long it will start to eat the edge of your vinyl and embossing and your lines won't be as clean.

I left it for about 40 minutes. It did start to eat at the letters a little, so maybe next time I would clean it off after 30 minutes.

They actually turned out so cute! Not perfect, but I think that even adds a little to their charm.

Next time I will only let the cream set for 30 minutes, and I will cut letters out from a different cartridge. I was going for the rope letters look from the rope font on Old West, but I don't think it translated. That is actually the only part I have a problem with: the lettering looks a bit more sloppy than rope-like.