Personalized Home Decor

Do you Pinterest? It is my newest addiction. ;) There's so much to see there...I can get lost there for hours. Lately, I've seen a lot of framed home decor projects and I decided to make one like I had seen on Pinterest before.

We are working, room by room, to personalize our home and make it ours. The foyer is our next project. We will be adding some family photos and I thought a monogrammed frame would be the perfect item to bring our photo collage together.

Glass etching may sound daunting but trust me, it really is easy! And your Gazelle does all, well almost all, of the work for you! I set my project size to the size of the glass insert for the frame, 8x10. Then, I chose my font and entered my text for the monogram and centered it where I wanted it. Then, I chose a second script font and entered the 'est.' and year and adjusted it's placement. Be sure you are using a vinyl blade when working with the vinyl. You don't want jagged edges or tears...especially when using it for glass etching. After changing out my blade, I loaded my vinyl on my mat and cut it out. So easy! It doesn't matter what color vinyl you choose because you're just using it as a tool this time. Scraps work great for this type of project. After cutting the vinyl, I had to "weed" out the parts I didn't need. In this case, I wanted the negative so I weeded out the actual letters. Here's what it looked like when I was done...

The next step is to get the vinyl onto my glass. The easiest way to accomplish this is to use transfer paper. When you're adhering the transfer paper to your vinyl, be sure you are burnishing it good all the way around so you don't have any bubbles or gaps. Then gently pull the transfer paper toward you, starting from the farthest corner, ensuring you're getting all the vinyl as you go. Here's what it should look like...

Now you're ready to apply the vinyl to the glass. Now, I cut my vinyl piece to 8x10 as well so I wouldn't have to worry about centering it on the glass. So I started by setting the vinyl along the very top edge of the glass, making sure my corners matched up perfectly. As I laid the vinyl, I burnished it as I went, like using a squeegee on your car windows then carefully removed the transfer paper, ensuring I didn't pick up any of the small pieces that fill my letters. I applied the Etch All Cream according to the directions on the bottle, waited about 15 or so minutes, rinsed and removed the vinyl. That's it!!

This would be a great project for a childs room, a perfect wedding gift or an easy accent for your own home decor!