My friend Amy came to me asking for help with her wedding because I am the "creative one." Wanting something different for a guest book and needing something to use as a cake platter. I devised a 3 in 1 project to fit the bill. The first part, a wood round, with their initial burned into it became the guest book. Today I will show you how I etched a piece of cut glass to become a customized cake platter for their big day. These pieces will then be joined together to create a cute end table for their home.
I started off with a piece of glass cut to match the wood round that would become their guest book. To have the glass cut, I visited Jerry's Glass and Lock, our local glass store. Telling them about my project they recommended the proper thickness of glass. (For those curious it was only about $30 to have a piece custom cut)
I then used a die-cutting machine to cut out Amy and Otto's names and their wedding date out of contact paper. The contact paper became a stencil that I will use to etch the surface of the glass.
I made sure to clean the glass with glass cleaner and a soft cloth before I started.
Make sure all the edges of the stencil are secured down, use a squeegee to help if needed. Because you are working on a flat glass surface it's easy to flip the glass over and see any air bubbles around the openings of your stencil. A quick pass of the squeegee will help eliminate them.
Cover the remaining surface with contact paper and/or masking tape as precaution. Any glass area that comes in contact with the etching cream will become cloudy. So unless you like living on the wild side, covering the remaining glass surface will help you to create a clean etch.
Apply etchall® etching cream to the area you desire to etch. Make sure you have a nice thick coating. Wait 15 minutes, then using the squeegee, scrape off the etching cream and put back into the jar. The cool thing about this brand of etching cream is that it's reusable!
Wash off your piece with soap and warm water until clean. Dry off and then remove the stencil and protective contact paper/masking tape.
I washed off the glass again and then applied clear "bumpers" to the bottom of the glass to prevent slipping on the table and the wood round when it becomes the topper for the end table. The raised bumpers also helped the etching to show up better when on top of the wood disk.
The glass was then used at the wedding as the cake platter.
Supplies used: cut glass circle, etchall® etching cream, etchall® squeegee, contact paper, masking tape, electronic die cutting machine, clear plastic bumpers.
Thanks to etchall® for providing the etching cream and squeegee.
