DIY Wedding Part 1 - Bridal Party Gifts

My husband brews his own beer and I'm an avid wine drinker - so creating personalized beer mugs and wine glasses for our bridal party gifts was the perfect idea. I knew my friends and family would get quite a bit of use from them AND they were super cheap (less than $30!!) and easy to make!!

The Dollar Tree near us has large wine glasses and beer mugs, so for $1 each, we were already ahead and I could afford to mess up on a few practice glasses. After minimal research, I found Armour Etch on Amazon.com for $15 and got it within 2 days via Amazon Prime (If you keep up with my posts, you will soon discover the reason why my friends have dubbed me the Amazon Queen). Lastly, I purchased some stencils and stickers in different fonts from Hobby Lobby. The only other supplies I needed were painters tape, paper, a knife, toothpicks, and cotton swabs. I already had that stuff on hand.

Wine Glasses

For my bridesmaids, I made wine glasses with their first initial engraved on it. I also etched around the base a heart beside my own name as a kind of signature to the other person. These were the more difficult of the two sets to make because I used stencils to make the letter etched into the glass. Not only that, but the stencils I used were thick plastic, so I essentially had to create a stencil from the original stencil using paper. I will admit it was a pain in the butt, but entirely worth it to get the look I wanted.

• Create Paper Stencil - I traced the letter I wanted to use on paper, then used an Xacto knife to cut the letter from the paper without tearing outside of the stenciled letter. It's a lot trickier than it sounds! Trim the paper to a workable, wine glass size and you're done.
• Wet Paper Stencil & Seal Against Glass - This I discovered AFTER I had ruined the outlines for several other glasses. I found that if I wet the paper, I could seal it against the glass and avoid gaps that the Armour Etch could seep through. 
• Lightly Apply Armour Etch - I found it easiest to simply dip a cotton swab into the bottle and dab it onto the glass showing through the stencil. I didn't use a lot of the solution - just enough so that I could clearly see the outline of the letter I was creating. 
• Remove Stencil - Since there was always the chance that the Armour Etch could seep outside the letter outline, I had to use steady hands to remove the stencil. From there, I would quickly use a clean cotton swab to remove any solution that had gotten where it wasn't supposed to. It is important to move fast because the Armour Etch only takes 5 minutes to etch into the glass and it's permanent, not like etching paints that can scrape off...
• Outline Letter - At this point, I would use a toothpick (since it has a more defined point) to clearly outline the letter freehand so that it had a strong, straight, solid edge. I have no advice for this other than to work quickly, have lots of light, and use a very steady hand. Once I was satisfied with the shape of the letter, I would fill in the shape with Armour Etch to make sure the entire letter was covered enough to etch properly. 
• Signature - Around the base of the glass, I used a toothpick to add a small heart next to my name in cursive. I used very small strokes and very little Armour Etch to do this, then I made it thicker and focused more on the detail of it once I had the basic outline done. 
• Rinse and Dry - After the 5 minute waiting period was over (sometimes I would even wait longer or until the Armour Etch had begun to dry), all I did was rinse the Armour Etch off of the glass, wash the glass, and dry it. (While the glass is wet, you can't see where it's been etched, so it needs to be dried too clearly see your handiwork.) 
• Repeat - If I was unsatisfied with exactly how the glass turned out or if I saw noticeable toothpick lines, all I did was apply more Armour Etch as evenly as possible, wait 5 minutes, then rinse and dry the glass. They certainly were not perfect when I was done, but they did look great and everyone that saw them was very impressed!!

Beer Mugs 

I knew my husband (to be) would want his glasses done differently, meaning less elegant, more manly. When I asked him about it, he said he wanted the person's full name on the glass and he had seen an example online that he liked, so of course, I tried to mimic that example. These glasses were way easier to make, mostly because I didn't have to mess around with silly stencils. 

• Create Name - Using stickers (in a font selected by my hubby to be), I put the name of his groomsmen going down the glass. I tried to start as close to the middle of the glass as I could, using the middle letter of their name to make sure it was spaced evenly from the top and bottom of the glass. Great thing about the stickers was that if I wasn't happy with it, I could peel it back up and then stick it where it belonged. I also tried to keep the placement uniform in relation to the handle of the mug.
• Press Edges - This step was important! In order to avoid the Armour Etch from seeping underneath the sticker, it was important to make sure that sticker was seriously stuck all around the edges. I pressed and prodded every single letter around each tiny edge to make sure nothing could get under it. 
• Create Name Box - Using painter's tape, I created a rectangle around each name, again, making sure the edge where Armour Etch was to be applied was stuck firm with no space for liquid to seep through. I also made the box big enough that you would be able to tell there was etching in the glass. I didn't put the tape right smack up against the letters and I certainly didn't try to make them all the same size, although if you were to make a set all with the same name or intials, you might want to do that.
• Apply Armour Etch - Using a cotton swab, I applied a generous amount of Armour Etch in the rectangle I created and I was fairly messy about it. I went right over all the stickers and everything. It was a nice break from the tedious work I did with the wine glasses. I just made sure to smooth it around evenly and take any of the big chunks off to the side and onto the painter's tape.
• Rinse and Dry - After 5 minutes, I rinsed the glasses and peeled the painter's tape and stickers right into the trash. I washed the glasses, dried them, and I was done. The guys were all super excited to have their own special mug to drink from and surprised that I had done them myself - they were sure we had ordered them from somewhere!!