Budget-Friendly Customizable Etched Glasses

With summer right around the corner, summertime barbecues and pool parties aren’t far behind! When a friend takes time to plan an event, Jacque and I always try to come up with a unique idea for a party gift to bring them as a thank you!  Since summertime tends to bring with it, a slew of parties, we decided to come up with a creative, inexpensive host or hostess gift.  As luck would have it, on a random trip through Home Goods, we found a nice set of glassware for $6. With a little help from our vinyl cutter we could create custom stencils and make these glasses the budget friendly gift idea we had been looking for!

Tools:

• Vinyl Cutter
• Small Utility Knife
• Small Paint Brush

Materials:

• Glasses
• Vinyl
• Transfer Tape
• Etching Creme

Instructions:

To begin, you’ll need to choose some artwork.  If you’re using a Silhouette or Cricut vinyl cutter, consider browsing their graphics libraries for ideas.  Or if you like what we came up with we’ve included our custom downloadable Relax stencil file (you’ll need a DropBox account to download the file, but the good news is that DropBox is free ;-).)

Use your vinyl cutter to create your stencil.  (Since there are a number of different cutters available, I won’t get into the instructions for each machine.)

Once your artwork has been cut into the vinyl, remove all of the excess material and cut the artwork into individual stencils.

Apply transfer tape to the stencil, remove the backing, place the stencil onto one of the glasses, then remove the transfer tape.

Using a small brush, apply an adequate amount of etching cream onto the stencil.

Wait approximately five minutes, then rinse the etching creme off in the sink.

Remove the vinyl stencil and dry off the glass.

You’ll be left with crisp, professional looking custom glasses, perfect to give to your friends as a thank you for hosting the party!

If you’re looking for some other great budget friendly gift ideas, be sure to check out our Monogrammed Jewelry Box or these equally easy to make DIY Chalkboard Paint mugs.

Or find an entire gallery of DIY Gift Ideas here.

~Learn More about Matt~

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