etched pint glasses - a father's day gift

unfortunately, etched glass is kind of hard to photograph. But I wanted to share this nifty little idea I had for father's day gifts this year. It needed to be something sort of "dad-ish" and fun, and I pondered the options as the girls and I were strolling down the walking path one day. After the etched glass lightbulb appeared over my head, I spent some time generating ideas for what to put on the glasses. 

For any of you non-beer nerds out there, the "micro" glass is a reference to micro-brew. Micro-brew, in short, is the rebellion against watery, wimpy domestic beer like Coors, Bud etc. The anchors are just because I'm obsessed with nautical things and I thought they would look neat sitting at the bottom of the glass.

 

I carved a design into low tack tape to use as a stencil for the etching cream. In hindsight, I should have taken a picture of the warnings on the etching cream bottle. To paraphrase, "don't let this touch you or you might die. contact poison control immediately."

As a person who is somewhat paranoid about chemicals, this set me on edge, but I was determined to follow through with my idea. For the rest of the day of course, every little strange feeling or tingle was the sinister approach of imminent death. Should a child approach while I was working on this, I began flapping my yellow gloved hand and shrieking "get away! don't come near!"

because of the small details in the design, I put a layer of tape over the original layer so I could peel it off the mat without ripping sections of it apart. I'm sure there is a better way to do this, but I was just making it up as I went along. 

 

the tape gets smoothed on, and air bubbles near the edges need to get smoothed out. 

 

then you begin the dance with death as you gingerly poke that toothpick into the jar, and smear the poisonous goo into the negative space of the tape. omg!!! is it eating through my glove! am I having chest pains? why is my heart beating so fast?? what does respiratory distress feel like?....

"I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful!!!"

 

I left the cream on for a few minutes and then rinsed the glasses off with a gloved hand, cowering from the pooling water in the sink that was surely about to jump out and throw itself into my eyes. Then I peeled the tape off and washed the glasses off with soap before putting them through the dishwasher, just to be sure. The last thing I wanted was to etch my husband and dad to death on father's day.

well, I survived. and I think the glasses turned out pretty cool, even if they are far from perfect. and they were made with love. love and fear.