First of all, try to save your ad from Sunday's paper or go online to print out one of their coupons. Etching medium is pretty expensive! A 3oz bottle costs $12.99, however it seems like it will do several projects so it's really not that bad.
I'm not perfect by any means and I do mess up when I'm crafting. So let me start by showing you what didn't work. I used Scotch blue painter's tape and stuck it directly to my Cricut mat and attempted to cut out my last name. It was horrible! The blade tore the tape all to pieces. So I tried shortening the blade length. Still, no luck. Next I tried putting a piece of card stock down first and placing the tape on top.
Success!
Yeah, it worked! I SLOWLY & CAREFULLY peeled the tape off of the paper and placed it onto my glass baking dish, smoothing out air bubbles as I went.
Getting excited now!
I slathered on the etching medium, dabbing it over the open areas of the tape. Wait 60 seconds and then rinse with cool water. (Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of this part :) Peel off the tape and wash the area with soap and water.
APPARENTLY, by me sticking the tape to paper first it decreased the stickiness of it (and since it was easy release tape anyway, I'm sure that didn't help).
That sure is a funky looking L
Not bad for a first attempt, I guess. I will definitely be keeping this one at home though :)
Not one to be beaten by a project, I had to try again. Another trip to Michael's and $15 later, I came home with Cricut sticky back vinyl and a vase. It looks like this:
I'm pretty sure you're supposed to use this to make wall
decals and such but hooray for double duty products!
Here goes attempt #2
I gathered my supplies. I used the Cricut again to cut out the M but stuck the vinyl directly onto the cutting mat and it worked great.
I kept out the painters tape just in case.
Didn't need the tape after all, the vinyl stuck really well.
Again, I didn't take any pictures of the etching on the vase or rinsing it off. (Give me a break, they only give you 60 seconds!)
The final product:
Ta Da!
Now I'm looking around the house for other things to etch! It's so simple and the end result looks great.
What a great idea for a personalized Christmas gift!
2 comments:
I love this!! And now on top of wanting to go etch things I also want a cricut machine! Is that vinyl the stuff that you put on your wall with all those sayings people have now?
Kasey,
Yes it is. I think it's a pretty clever idea to be able to make your own! We do have one and while I think the vinyl will work fine, it does feel a bit thicker than the store bought ones. It comes in different colors too but since it didn't matter for my project, I picked pink.
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