Butterbeer!

I went and visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter earlier this month and of course I had to try the Butterbeer. My mother became obsessed!  We even returned to the park the morning before we left purely to run up to the Three Broomsticks and get one last glass!  While I was perusing the internet after returning home from my awesome vacation (yes I bought a wand!), I found this extremely cool tutorial on how to make your own Butterbeer written by Chica and Jo. Needless to say, I followed the tutorial on the glass etching to make my own gift set to give to my mother for Chanukah/Christmas. So here I am sharing the results.

I bought the stencils and flavoring from Chica and Jo's store, and bought glass mugs, cream soda, and etching cream from online and I happened to already have a foam brush stashed away in my craft drawer, so after I received my items I was ready to go!

So here is what happened. I tried the first stencil as is, following the directions in their tutorial. It worked all right, but I couldn't get all the wrinkles out to make it perfectly smooth so some of the etching cream dripped down through the little bubbles...oops. But its hardly noticeable so it is nothing to worry about.  However, on the next three I had cut off the top and bottom of the stencil by about 3/8 of an inch so the stencil itself wasn't as long and therefore would not go so far to the base of the mug where it curved more and was harder to make the stencil flat and smooth.

This worked a little better but I was still left with a not quite smooth stencil. And let me tell you, I worked like crazy to smooth that baby out...I even used a smoother tool (not sure what they are called but my father had one from when he puts the vinyl decal and stencils on his car) but alas, I still had a few drips.

Then I had a lightbulb moment!  Instead of leaving the glass standing up while the cream was soaking in (my brand said five minutes) I laid the glass flat. Tada! No more drips down the little gaps I had been unable to smooth out and now the glasses turned out perfectly!  Here it is laying flat and hanging out with the etching cream on.

Following the rest of the directions, I washed it off with hot water when done and removed the stencil. I made sure to alternate which side of the glass I was putting the etching on so that depending on whether the person is right handed or left handed it will either face them or face out when drinking. So I had two glasses with them on one side and did the other two opposite. This gives the user a choice!

Guess how they turned out?  Completely awesome! My mom will love this gift set.

I want to do more glass etching. I showed the mugs to my father and now he wants to make some stencils to etch some glasses for himself!

I had never heard of or thought of glass etching before this and its surprisingly simple.  I will definitely do this again...it makes such a unique gift--especially if you make a personalized stencil before you begin!