{DIY} Etched Monogram Mugs

I was at it again with another DIY Christmas gift, but this year I procrastinated to the very end. In addition to regular gifts, I made a small gift for everyone. I scoured blogs, the Internet, and Pinterest for ideas. I wanted to make something easy, inexpensive, but nice. So, I stumbled upon etching. I had no idea this could be done at home, but I found this awesome etching creaming called Armour Etch. It was super easy to use and almost fool proof...almost. Here's what I did...

You'll need:
Glass mugs/beer steins
Armour Etch
Sponge brush
Contact paper
Cricut cutter or stencil design
Rubber gloves
Ventilated area

I bought my glass mugs & steins at my local 99¢ Store, but I'm sure you could find something similar at the $ Tree. I also bought the contact paper at the 99¢ Store. The Armour Etch can be found at Michaels craft stores or online.

The first thing I did was rinse my mugs. While they were drying, I used my cricut to cut out monogram initials from my contact paper. I did last name initials only. I didn't want to get too complicated.

After the mugs were dried, I positioned the contact paper initials on the glasses. I tried my darnedest to get them as straight as possible.

Once they were all lettered up, I put on my gloves, in a well ventilated area, and I used my sponge to pack some cream on the area I wanted to be etched. Now here's a tip - You want the area that's going to be etched, to be thoroughly covered, but you don't want to do too much where the etching cream starts to run. Luckily, I caught this in time before there was too much damage. Hehe :)

You'll then leave the cream on as recommended by the jar's directions, however I left mine on for 15 minutes.

After the time is up, I rinsed the glasses (careful NOT to touch the cream), peeled off the contact paper, and I washed them with dish soap. And let dry.

They're done! That's it. This was the quickest gift I'd ever made and it was sooooooo easy, and everyone liked them! I think they look expensive! So, now that I've done these glasses, I have other stuff in mind like a glass baking dish, a lemonade jar, a cake stand, eep! I can't wait to try it on something else!