Etching

There's a crafty series of projects I've been up to, but I haven't really been etching to talk about them(bwahahahahaha....sorry, I have to laugh at my own puns because I'm pretty sure most people don't and I don't want to leave them there all lonely and un-laughed at) because they are kinda sorta...failures. Kinda.

I read about glass etching in Young House Love's new book and immediately wanted to try it. I have an abundance of glass things around the house that were just dying to have Ws on them. And while they "worked"...

...they also didn't.

(See the blotchiness? Yuck.)

This little chevron trifle bowl looks great, but only b/c I turned the best side to face outwards.

It was when I tried to recreate a polka dot Kate Spade vase that I really hit rock bottom. It looked bad. Really bad. And even when I switched etching creams (I started out with Armor Etch, which is pretty much the brand that every tutorial on the entire internet uses, but all the results were horrible. I ended up with Martha Stewart's version, which worked in a later project) it still looked like my vase was infected with some horrible glass version of chicken pox.

Thank goodness I had an idea from some other arts and crafts going on around the house.

With an oil based metallic gold Sharpie, I simply colored in those nasty spots. And volia!

A gold polka dot vase!

I haven't experimented on a wide scale with Martha's etching cream, but just for the sake of research, I did one little project afterwards using hers, and other than some crooked lines, the W on my turned out incredibly well. But I was running out of glass, so I had to put the etching on hold, but I would definitely recommend Martha's brand of etching cream (found at Michael's) based on my own experiences.

This is the tutorial I used after my first disaster, and my results improved dramatically using this technique and Martha's etching cream.

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