I failed at glass etching. And the sad thing is that I thought it was going to be super easy. I have a jar that holds my paint pens and wanted to spruce it up a little with some etching detail. So I bought a $4 kit from the craft store and thought it would be fun to try. This is one piece of the kit:
I cleaned the glass with the stuff in the kit and then taped on my stencil.
Then I sponged on the frosting goo. I could instantly tell that this project was failing. When I looked at the stencil from the inside of the jar, I could see the frosting goo was under the stencil! No!!! It was too late. I tried pushing down the stencil, but the damage was already done.
Of course, when I removed the stencil, the pattern was blurry at best. I actually looked like I finger painted the pattern onto the jar. I failed. But I am still using the jar as a paint pen holder.
I know that the stencil needs to be tighter to the jar. But what else went wrong? Have y'all ever frosted glass with this kit? If I want to etch more glass should I just bite the bullet and buy the fancy air blaster etcher kit?
Try making your own stencil with either tape or a cricut machine.
ReplyDeleteYou could get some spray adhesive and lightly spray the back of the stencil and then stick it on the glass. then you should probably still tape off the edges so you don't have over spray. hope this helps!
ReplyDeleteGoing under the stencil wont have anything to do with the etching gel you use. It could be that whatever you used to clean the glass left a residue/still wet and thats what caused a separation (that allowed the gel to go under).
ReplyDeleteIt looks like your using a plastic stencil. Definitely use a vinyl one (the ones you can buy for etching are usually worth the money), or just place tape over the area, tape your design over it and cut out the tape with a blade.
Tips for etching: Keep the item you are etching flat, dont stand it right side up at any time, it will cause the gel to run. Smoother the design, but press VERY lightly. Any pressure against the stencil will cause it to go under. And coat it evenly or you have weird streaks in the etch.
If you want to (try) and fix the etch you have, I have used silver embossing over etches gone wrong. it looks great (though a completely different look), really easy and creative! Hope I helped!
Thanks everyone! I will try again with a vinyl sticker.
ReplyDelete~Bethany