Father's Day, Glass Etching, & More!

This past weekend I travelled down to St. Pete Beach, FL for a girls weekend, but before the trip I was crafting as usual. Here is a quick catch up.... My friend Brooke (who inspired me to start a blog) requested vinyl name stickers so she could make these fun boxes to store her boys' art in files as they grew up. I gave Brooke the decals and she placed them on the bins and sent me this picture! Didn't they turn out great?

 I recently experimented with the heat transfer and fabric paint options that the Silhouette has to offer. The heat transfer shirt came out awesome, now I'm just waiting to see how it washes. No pictures of those projects yet, but I will post soon.

Father's Day was also this past weekend I wanted to do something special for my dad. On my birthday my dad wrote me an amazing letter that reflected on his experience walking me down the aisle, as well as noting other important steps he watched me take as a father. In the letter he said it was 26 steps down the aisle to the altar before he gave me away to Chris. I was in tears immediately and even thinking of the letter makes my eyes go watery. I had the idea to try my new toy's ability to do glass etching. My goal was to find an all glass frame and etch "26 steps" with 26 pairs of feet around the edges that included a picture of my dad walking me down the aisle. This is what I created in the Silhouette Design Program...

I started by creating two boxes the exact size of the frame so I was using real dimensions as I made the design. **In case you are using a Silhouette you can create a square by holding down Ctrl and selecting the rectangle. When I printed out the vinyl the little feet were so small I was afraid to use the etching cream on them, so I scrapped the feet.  I used scrap vinyl that was left over from other projects, which is why you see pink and black being used. Here is the frame to start (btw all glass frames are hard to find!).

When using the etching cream you are using the vinyl as a stencil, so you weed out the letters you would normally keep in another project.

After placing the vinyl on the frame I used paint brush to place the etching cream over the glass. I thoroughly coated the frame and left it alone for about 20 minutes.

After twenty minutes you peal away the vinyl and wash the cream away, and the frame was complete....but I forgot to take a final picture of it. You will just have to trust me that it turned out great, and I got it on the first try it was so easy!! Much to my husband's disappointment glass etching is not done by inserting the glass under the blade of the silhouette, but applying a cream that etches the glass.

Here are some examples of things that can be done with glass etching and the Silhouette.

The possibilities are endless! I hope you all had a wonderful Father's Day! My dad truly loved his present!

Happy Etching!