Sneaking some crafty-ness into Christmas

I am not a crafty person.  In fact, in my years as a mom, I've come to hate crafts more each year.  I've never stopped to really analyze this, but I think it has something to do w/ the clutter factor.

I'm not great at STAYING organized.  But I love to be organized.  Hence, nothing new can come into my house.  Especially useless little cardboard things "decorated" with the puzzle pieces glued with back facing up.  (Yes, I had something like that hanging on my fridge for years.)

But, I digress.

Way back when I just had a couple of kids and actually hung out w/ a couple of girlfriends on occasion, we took some glasses and etched a few fun designs on them.  My kids loved them, and when 2 of them broke (funny how that works with kids) I rashly promised them that we would make some new ones.  I ordered glass etching cream, and promptly forgot about my promise.

Luckily, they did too.  For a few years.

This year was my Waterloo, however.  E-Day could be put off no longer.  Since whenever my husband goes off for a few days, I take leave of my senses, I decided to do this one evening while my husband was off on one of his not-uncommon business trips.  I started with a set of simple clear glasses from Ikea.  (And a yummy lunch of Ikea meatballs had me energized enough to think this was going to be no problem.)

I also gathered up a couple of exacto knives, the glass etching cream (I did an online search and bought it that way, but I've heard people who can survive craft stores without falling into an anxiety attack say that you can find it there, too.), along with some other basic supplies:

I realized quickly that the division of labor was going to be the key factor in ensuring all children survived the night.  So I assigned my artistic daughter the job of drawing the designs.  I did not have cheap contact paper this time - just the library-grade laminate I cover my books with - but cheap contact paper was much easier to work with when I did it w/ my girlfriends.  Back when I did this with my girlfriends, we used pre-cut stencils to trace designs onto the contact paper backing, which made the creative part of the this craft easier.  But, honestly, I couldn't be happier with the drawings my amazing daughter came up with!  Another favourite with my boys were the letters of their name.  (It *does* take care of that pesky problem of one child using 10 cups every day, but just beware: cutting out letters is not fun.)

I took each design she drew, and cut it out with the exacto knife.  Before I actually had the knife in my hand, I had thought we could take turns cutting out the designs, but after looking at that sharp little blade, I realized I've spent enough time in emergency rooms.  And my children will go through life much better with all of their fingers and tendons intact.

I handed the design cut out over to one of the waiting children, and they stuck it on the glass.  I gave a brief but terrifying lecture about the dangers of acid and mentioned people burning holes in their skin and eyes.  Then my responsible Mr. Monk-like child was allowed to spread the glass-etching paste over the cut-out.  He was extremely cautious.  (I was so proud.)  Thicker is definitely better:

The bottle says to wait 3-5 minutes before rinsing off.  I don't know if it's because my paste is several years old, but I found that waiting 10 minutes or more was best.  We rinsed it off, peeled off the contact paper, and VOILA!  Everybody lived.  I didn't hate the process or the result.  And I have some cute little presents for my nephews.

Ssshhhh.  It's a secret. :)

~Stephanie