My Husband wanted to add some plant life to his new office, being the proud geeks we are and me being the crafty visionary I am, we could not just buy a container, plant and soil then hit combine. Nope. After seeing me make a set of drinking glasses with Boba Fett’s helmet & symbol as a Christmas gift Husband wanted to do something with the Etching Cream. So While at Ikea we picked up some Lucky Bamboo, a small glass square vase thing and some rocks.
Once at home we took the symbols from the card game Magic the Gathering and placed it into the Silhouette Design Software & was able to quickly cut them out of some clear contact paper. We chose to use the Earth on one side and Water on the other, which seemed appropriate to the project. Before placing the negatives of the shapes on I made sure the glass was very very clean with a Windex. I centered the symbols on the glass and then I rubbed all the edges of the contact paper for maximum stickage.
Moving to the kitchen sink due to my fear of spillage on anything important, I began to apply a thick layer of Armour Etch with a one inch foam brush over the exposed glass while making sure I don’t get any past the contact paper.
The bottle of Armour Etch I had did not have a time frame for letting it sit but during previous uses I learned that at least 15 minutes was needed. So 15 minutes later I rinsed the one side I did. Note: Be careful while rinsing as this is 1) a chemical 2) this has eaten away at glass so there are tiny granules of glass in the cream now.
Once rinsed I removed the contact paper to reveal the symbol. I then moved on to the rest of the sides after making sure that more time was not needed for the cream to do it’s job.
Now it’s the simple job of placing bamboo in the container, filling around them with some rocks and adding some water.
Once rocks & water were placed in the etched symbols were less prominent than what I was hoping for. But since this was going to be in his work office the more subtle outcome worked perfectly.
If you would like to make your own Magic the Gathering etchings or cut outs with a Silhouette you can download my file here for free.