Christmas in July Craft Party

Last month most of the girls on my mom's side of the family (we missed you Erin!) got together to do some crafting. The idea was to make little Christmas gifts for neighbors, co-workers, etc. and have some gifts already knocked out before the insane holiday season got started.

We decided to try our hands at glass etching, figuring it was an easy way to make a custom gift. As usual with this group, we did a lot of talking, a lot of eating (my sister made Christmas cookies!) and a little bit of work.

The process is super simple. You need a bottle of etching cream, craft brushes and a stencil.

We used Contact paper, which was pretty easy to position and re-position until you had it just where you wanted it on your piece. The Cricut machines made cutting the stencils super fast, but I've seen stencils around blogland cut out with an Exacto knife as well. (I have no where near the patience needed to do that.)

Once your stencil is cut, you just position it, paint on the etching cream and wait. We found that waiting longer than the bottle recommended worked out better - we waited about 10 minutes. And I don't think you can go wrong waiting even longer.

After your time is up, wipe away the cream (Use gloves! Etching cream is nasty stuff.) and remove your stencil. Voila! Simple, quick and so pretty.

These goblets were my project. B Daddy made fun of the idea of having numbered glasses, but I LOVE them. No more, is this my glass or yours?? 4 is my favorite number. Drinking from my Four Glass makes me smile. And I am sure I've seen etched glasses like these somewhere expensive before...

I loved my aunt's sweet country-esque design. Perfect for the kitchen!

And we all loved Mom's Laugh Often vase...who wouldn't love to see that on their desk?!

My cousin made monogrammed beer steins and wine glasses for her neighbors but I somehow failed to get any pictures of her pieces. I think she was the only one of us who planned to gift any of her projects anyways, the idea of parting with any of our beautiful projects was too much for the rest of us to bear. Guess we'll be needing to have a Christmas in September party too...