Experiments in etched glass

I thought I'd try my hand at etched glass this week. I always thought it involved slowly drawing little pictures on glass with a metal file, but apparently you can create the etched glass look with cream. There's also a spray paint that gives glass a frosted look, which is very similar to etching. But one craft product at a time :)

 Such dangerous stuff in such a teeny container...

This little container is only 3 oz. and three inches tall. You only need a tiny bit so a little really goes a long way.

First things first, find your piece of glass and pick a design that you want to put on it. I save interesting looking glass like a crazy hoarder, so my collection of old liquor bottles and pasta sauce jars yielded a lovely candidate for etching.

See?

 

I came up with an old whiskey bottle that has a nice flat surface perfect for this project. I found a design I liked online, usually much easier than designing something myself. Then I laid down a little square of painters tape to draw the design onto, with two strips on either side to hold the rest of the tape in place.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

I freehanded the design onto the tape; one day I'll learn how to accurately trace things onto other things, but today is not that day...

Then using my X-acto knife, I cut the design out of the tape. It looks complicated, but the straighter the lines you use are, the easier it'll be to cut out. This design only took me about five minutes to carefully cut out.

Make sure the glass you're using is really clean and dry. Any dirt or water will keep the tape from really sticking and then the etching cream will seep underneath and could mess up your design. Nothing's more frustrating than carefully drawing and cutting all these tiny pieces of tape only to have one big smudge lay itself out all over your object d'art.

Transfer the tape onto the bottle, being really careful to get every corner and piece really stuck down on the glass. I carefully ran a credit card over the surface to try and get any bubbles out. If you can look through the back of the bottle to see if there are any left.

Using a paint brush put a nice thick layer of cream down over the spots you want etched. The bottle says you should wear gloves because your skin shouldn't come in contact with the cream, and really if you're being good you should listen to them. I get this cream on my skin all the time though and nothing horrible's happened (knock on wood), as long as you're careful and wash it off right away you should be fine.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You will NOT be okay if you get this stuff into your eyes at all. So make sure you don't touch your face while you're etching, and wash your hands immediately after putting the cream on. Anything that can dissolve glass will certainly make an impact on eyeballs, so safety first...

The bottle recommends letting the cream sit for fifteen minutes, but the longer it sits, the heavier the etch will be. I personally don't find fifteen minutes to be enough time, so I'll put the cream on and go putter around with something else for an hour or so before taking it off.

To take it off just hold the whole shabang under running water, tape and all. Rub the cream off with your hands or the brush you used to put it on. When it looks clean, peel off the tape and give it a second wash to get rid of any tiny smudges left over. Don't worry about getting the cream on the places you don't want to etch, if you wash it off quickly it won't show up at all.

Let the bottle dry so the etching will really show up, and voila! Artsy glass.

 Ahhh, the fruits of a hard hours work...

If there are any tiny smudges where the cream did get under the tape, you can use a little clear nail polish to clean it up. I haven't tried that on colored glass, but I think it will work the same way. Just paint a really thin layer on the part you don't want to be etched, and no one will ever know....

Couple of other examples of experimental glass I've done in the past.

This Kraken bottle was a particularly nasty piece of work. Note this dangerous looking octopus and his majestic tentacles.

Remember when I said it's easier to cut out straights lines from painters tape? I wasn't kidding...

 

Pretty little swirly on a pretty little bottle...

This little guy was originally a vodka nip, now maybe suitable for a little flower on a windowsill :)

Pendants 101

Hi everyone! This is my first official post so I wanted to make it a cool one. I'm a big fan of pendants and  earrings, and since I'm not a millionaire sometimes it's easier to just make these things ma'self.

In honor of my BFFs birthday this weekend, we went up to Rockport, MA to partake in the epically delicious Roy Moore's Lobster Shack, and ended up stopping by the local beadery as well, www.shopbeadles.com. The had a pretty stunning display of very cool looking beads, especially all the turquoise, for which I'm a sucker.

BFF came away with a beautiful teardrop pendant (Turquoise of course), but I couldn't stop myself from diving into the bargain bin. Found two sets of discount beads and couldn't wait to get home and wire them into some kind of adornment.

Pictures are blurry and weirdly lit, sorry but I took these on my sketchpad in my tiny bedroom. I'll refine my methods soon, don't worry :)

First things first, the tools for this project. Two old-ass needlenose pliers from my childhood tool shed, and a wire cutter that my grandfather may have owned.

 Obviously I don't throw down for the actual tools that you're supposed to use, just see what I can refashion from stuff lying around my apartment.

The findings, a.k.a. anything that makes up the jewelry aside from the actual jewels (and by jewels I mean the pretty pieces of plastic we're using in place of jewels).

 So, my first step was to put one of the beads on the head pin (the tiny delicate looking nail), and start crafting the loop that'll hold the pendant on a necklace chain or earring hook. A couple of millimeters above the top of the bead, bend the head pin at about a 45 degree angle away from the center.

 Make sure to leave a little space between the bend and the top of the bead so you can wrap the head pin back around itself to make a circle.

It helps if you can hold the head pin in place with one set of pliers, then use the other pliers to wrap the end of the pin back around itself. Takes a little dexterity and I find that swearing profusely helps a lot.

 I try to wrap the end of the pin back around itself as far as it can go, then snip off the last remaining bit of pin with the wire cutters. I then try to smoosh the raw edge of the cut pin back into the metal coil of the pendant loop USING THE PLIERS. Smooshing ragged metal pin tips with your bare fingers is tetanusy and frustrating.

 If you look really close up, it's not the prettiest loop in the world, but hey we're not winning prizes for neatness up in here. Most people don't closely scrutinize other people's jewelry and how it's put together, so I wouldn't be too worried about making it perfect. As long as it holds together and doesn't skewer you in the neck, you're good.

I take a little jump ring, open it a bit and pop the new pendant on there. Since the loop we made on the actual pendant is kinda small, it helps to have a slightly larger one hold it on to the necklace/earring hook. Also I like to mix and match pendants with each other, so the easier it is to take on and off a chain, the more sane I'll be by the time I make it to work.

Here's what the final product looks like. Simple, but effective.