Saturday-Centerpieces.

I have tentatively planned out my week of prepping for the parents 40th anniversary party.  Today was devoted to centerpieces.  I saw someone break down 10 years in the number of months, weeks, days, etc. and put in on a canvas.  I decided to see what would happen if I tried to etch the breakdown of 40 years on glass.

Here are my tools: 

I bought 5 vases from the dollar store and the adhesive stencil film and etching cream from Michaels.  Originally the film is $10 and the etching cream is $23.  Kind of pricey, considering I bought the vases for $1 each.  (But a little FYI, if you ever find yourself in Michaels about to make a purchase, always check online for coupons.  Practically every week Michaels puts out coupons for 40% off one regularly priced item.  I actually looked it up on my iPhone while I was in line, because they will scan the barcode right off your phone!  I got lucky because not only did I find the 40% off coupon, but there was an additional coupon for 40%  off any regular priced Martha Stewart crafts.  You'll thank me one day when you want to be crafty).

I had recently bought a Silhouette Cameo.  This is a machine that looks like a printer, but instead of ink, it uses a little blade to cut your designs.  It's a pretty awesome concept, but I haven't had much time to play with it yet to truly see it at its best.  I brought it out for this project. I cut out a 12 x 12 piece of adhesive stencil, made a stencil with the Silhouette and attached it onto the vase.

The only problem with the stencil was taking out the negative space for the letters and numbers and attaching it on the vase so that they would be able to be etched properly.  I had to take out the little pieces with a tweezer and attach it on every o, e, a, 4, 6, 8, etc.... that was the most time consuming out of this project.

The etching cream looked like caramel. The directions say to apply a thick layer on the glass and leave on for 15 minutes.  Then rinse off.

And this was the end result:

Not bad.  I did notice I should've paid more attention to the consistency of the cream, made sure I applied the same amount over the whole thing.  As you can see the 40 is a little splotchy.  Well, I have 4 more to go, I'm sure it'll eventually get there.  I did have a panic moment while the etching cream was setting.  I had to make Chad double check my math and make sure that really was the breakdown of 40 years in months, weeks, days, hours, and minutes.  Phew, it was.

 Overall looks pretty good.  Some flowers in there, and we've got our centerpieces.