Come in and see my etchings

November 13, 2012

Since the holiday season is upon us with several potluck dinners coming up, I thought this would be the perfect time to see if I could etch my name on the bottom of my casserole dish.  This is something I’ve wanted to try for a long time but had just never gotten around too. Hopefully, doing so will see the safe return of my dish should I forget it, or leave it someplace.

I used a scrap of Cricut Cuttable, adhesive backed, 3 mil, vinyl to cut out my stencil. I used the Cricut cartridge, Lyrical Letters, feature key Loop dee Loo, for my name. I manipulated it with my Gypsy welding the letters together and cutting it at 1.10 inches.  The vinyl directions said to set my blade depth to 6 and my pressure to 2, but when I cut out a small trial stencil, (which I highly recommend) it wouldn’t come apart easily so I adjusted the pressure to 3 and it worked beautifully.  Once the stencil was cut, I removed it from the mat, trimmed off the extra vinyl leaving about a 1 inch border around my name, this made it easier to handle. I carefully removed the letters from the vinyl, setting them aside for a later use. This left a stencil of my name. Be sure to leave any inside pieces of a letter on the backing. (Like with the letter B, the 2 half circles) Once all the bits I didn’t need were removed I covered the stencil with a piece of scotch tape I used as transfer tape, over lapping on both sides about one inch. This helps move the stencil to the dish in one piece with out twisting out of shape or folding up on its self. (I speak from experience here) I slowly removed the vinyl’s backing and then placed the stencil on the bottom of the dish where I wanted my name. When I got it positioned properly I removed the tape, smoothed out the air bubbles in the vinyl and placed the insides of my B where they belonged.

I followed all of the same steps with the decorative branch and bird I cut using the Cricut Serenade cartridge. When I removed the vinyl design I placed it on a piece of left over vinyl backing to keep to use in another project. 

I bought some Armour Etch, glass etching cream at Michael’s. I had a 50% off coupon so it was only about 6 dollars. I wiped the bottom of the casserole with a cotton boll soaked in alcohol to remove any oils, let it dry and then using an old paint brush, I applied a thick layer of the etching cream. The directions say to leave it on for 60 seconds but I had read somewhere else to leave it for 10 minutes. My casserole is cobalt blue and I was a little worried that this wouldn’t work on the colored glass so I left the etching cream on for the 10 minutes. Wearing rubber gloves, I rinsed off  the cream and stencil with water.

At first I thought it hadn’t worked, but after I dried it off there it was! Magic!

 As you can see the pan is an older, much used one. I can't wait to try it on my newer ones too.You could even add your phone number so people would know where to reach you if you left it at a gathering.

Wouldn't it add a nice personalized touch to a wedding gift of a set of casserole dishes?