Personalized Beer Mugs & Wine Glasses

So, like a large majority of people out there, my husband and I are making a handful of Christmas gifts.  I'd like to say we are doing it because we think there is more meaning behind it, but really it's cuz we po'.  I figured if we were going to be making gifts, I wanted something they still needed and still looked great.  So, for the next couple of days I am going to be sharing the gifts that we made for our family.
So, to start off, my husband's mom was really needing new wine glasses and his dad was wanting beer mugs.  What can I say, they like to party.  We decided we were going to get them some wine glasses and mugs and etch their last name initial on them.  So, after looking around I found wine glasses and beer mugs at The Dollar General for $1 dollar a piece!  If you are worried that they would be cheap, let me calm those worries, I accidently tapped one of the wine glasses against our tile countertop and it didn't break.  Score!  Other than the item you will be etching on (glasses, mugs, ornaments, frames, plates, etc.), you will need the following items.  I used Armour Etching cream, a small paint brush, an x-acto knife, and label paper.  You do can purchase a kit that has most of these items and stencils in it.  

 I couldn't find stencils of letters the size that I wanted, so we found one on this website that has 1001 free fonts.  We copied it and opened it up in our paint program.  Then we sized it to the size we wanted and printed it out onto the label sheet.  After that we painstakingly cut out the lettering using the x-acto knife.  You could always just use masking tape and free hand a letter and cut it out also if you do not want to purchase the labels.  We just had them on hand, so there was no cost to use them.  

Once we had the letter cut out, we peeled the backing of the label. To get them centered and in the same location on all of them, we took a scrap piece of paper the same length of the letter.  We used the thickness of the scrap piece of paper to determine how far down the letter was going to be by lining it up with the top edge of the glass and the top edge of the label.  We made sure to smooth down all bubbles that will allow for etching cream to get underneath. 

Then, we painted on the etching cream and I mean we gooped the stuff on.  This is not a time to get skimpy.  This is one of those times that less is not more! 

We patiently waiting while letting our etching cream sit for 10 minutes.

Then we rinsed the etching cream off.

And Viola'  beautiful!  Well, as close are we can get to beautiful.  What do you thing?

please ignore the crumbs on the countertop

Oh and check back tomorrow to see the next project we worked on! To see more gift ideas, check out my other DIY gifts.