Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Glass Etching - Cricut Style .... A Tutorial

Wow. This is such fun and so easy that I thought I'd share exactly how to do it. You will have a blast with this fun technique.




Step 1: Gather supplies. You will need something glass (I used a Christmas ornament for the tutorial), glass etching cream, your Cricut (I also used my Design Studio and the Christmas Cheer cartridge), a vinyl scrap, a paint brush, and a paper towel. You will also need to be near a water source.






This is the etching cream that I used. DO NOT TOUCH THE CREAM. You'd think they'd put that in big letters, wouldn't you??? Yeah ... they don't, so I am putting it in big letters so that you know.








Step 2: Put your vinyl scrap on your mat and cut your stencil as you would cut anything on your bug.










I used the Design Studio so that I would know exactly where my stencil was going to cut and so that I could see it on the screen first.












Step 3: Remove your stencil from the Cricut. In this case, I'm using the actual square that gets cut, but in other cases, you would use what is normally left after cutting and taking the shape out - stuff you often throw away.










Step 4: Remove the backing on the vinyl and apply to the ornament (or whatever your glass is).














Step 5: Coat the open areas of your stencil with a thick coat of the etching cream. Be careful not to get the cream in any place you don't desire etching to occur.











Step 6: Wait. With my etching cream, I had to wait for 60 seconds.















Step 7: Rinse with water. I don't have a picture of this, but I think you can figure it out. Just take your project and hold it under a running faucet. Again .... DO NOT TOUCH THE CREAM. I wanted to 'help' the cream off of the ornament..... Don't do that. Just keep rinsing it until the cream is all off of the project and stencil. You may not notice the etching at this time. The area that you etched may look like it's covered with plastic wrap or something. It looks odd .... but it's just fine. :)







Step 8: Wipe it off with a cloth and take off the stencil. You will start to see the etching at this point.
Put the stencil on something slick or plastic. Then, you can use it again.








On the cloth after rinsing.












Step 9: Enjoy your finished product!


















Up close picture of the etching.













Here's another one I did today, as well.

That one's a little more tricky with the holes in the numbers and such, but it's so much fun to try!!!

I hope you'll try this and let me know how it turns out.



As always, have a great day stamping and have a great, big, beautiful tomorrow!!!!

Monday, November 24, 2008

Toadally Invited :)

My great niece turns one in a few weeks, and her mom wanted a little assistance on the invitations for her party. Everything before she was born was done in frogs - including her room and shower. So, we went with that theme for the party.

The Cricut was used for the green card base. The frog (Paper Dolls) is welded to the crown (Paper Dolls), and the crown is welded to the rectangle base (George). All of that was cut, welded together, in green. The crown was cut again in yellow and adhered to the crown shape on the card. A little sparkle was added to the top of each crown to make it a little more 'royal.' We drew each smile by hand, added flower brads to the Primas, and adhered the flowers with Glue Dots.





The inside of the invitation was embossed with the Swiss Dots embossing folder on the Cuttlebug. A strip of dots was embossed down the side of each of the pink layers (also cut from George on the Cricut), as well. The adorable butterfly was cut and embossed with the Butterfly Combo set for the Cuttlebug.







We made 30 invitations, and they were a good bit of work - i.e. .... I was cussin' by the end of it. :)








But .... she's worth it.














By the way ... all invitation pictures were taken by Rebecca Roberts.

The Caitlyn picture is ALL mine. :)



Have a great day .... and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow!!!!