Monday, October 19, 2009

It'll be a Green Christmas . . . with etching . . .

When I saw this wonderful tutorial on emboss resist glass etching, I knew I had to try it for myself!  And, I knew just what I wanted to etch on . . . I'd been saving some cool hexagonal jars from one of my favorite grocery stores to recycle into gift packaging!  The nice thing about these jars is that they have square surfaces, which makes it easier to stamp on them than it would be on a rounded surface.  Plus, I figured there was no need to create a mask -- I'd let the shape of the side I was working on be the boundary for my etching instead.  So, without further ado, a couple photos of the first jar I created:





The Merry Christmas stamp is from the Holiday Best stamp set, and the Snowman is from the Snow Buddies set.  (Actually, used this technique on three sides, the third side is snowflakes from the Snow Buddies set--you can catch a glimpse of it on the left side in the top photo). 

Basically, what you do is wipe the glass with your Embossing Buddy (I'm usually lazy about this, but this is one of those projects where it is very important for best results), stamp your image in versamark, apply embossing powder, shake off loose powder, and emboss.  Then, brush on your etching cream and let set following the manufacturer's directions.  Rinse away the etching cream (the embossing powder will probably come off, too, but if not, you can gently scrape it away), and you're done!  I found it best to do one side of the jar at a time.

The second jar, I filled with chocolate-mint candies and will send to a good friend as part of a swap soon.  For this one, I used the Season of Joy stamp set.  And, I couldn't resist sponging Champagne Shimmer Paint on to add sparkle to the piece I stamped and attached to alter the lid!  Here's how it turned out:




Finally, I found some box-shaped glass ornaments tucked away and tried it out on one of those:
 



Too much fun!  Try this out -- I'd love to see what you create with this technique, too!

- Michelle

2 comments:

stampinstars said...

Very cool technique! I've never tried this before. The recipients of these gifts will be most impressed! Erin

Jane Izumi Matsumoto said...

This is totally neat and SUPER easy! Thank you for sharing! I have already made a couple of gifts with this technique! xx Jane