Things I Made: Gold Stem Monogrammed Wine Glasses

There are many things I'm good at: looking good, walking in 5 inch heels, making paleo versions of non-paleo food, passing judgment on complete strangers, and the like. While I'd love nothing more than to wax poetic about my many talents, this post actually highlights my one and only shortcoming.

If you guessed compassion, you'd be wrong. But close. It's crafting! 

I've made a few feeble attempts at some DIY this year (namely this and this), but nothing all that impressive. So when I went home to Houston for the holidays (Happy New Year, btw), I immediately made plans with Taylor from TaylorMade--we went to high school together--for a one-on-one crafting lesson. It was like being with Martha Stewart, except with less anger and more praise.

Taylor is probably the craftiest person I know. She can sew, paint, cook, and redesign, all while juggling wife and mom duties. I'm pretty sure she doesn't sleep. So when we decided to get together for a craft lesson, she came up with this completely perfect project: gold stem monogrammed wine glasses.

After seeing her house, and cooing over all her craft projects in real life, we sat down for a delicious lunch of pimento cheese croissant sandwiches, her black bean salad (so delicious!), and loads of reminiscing. Two hours had passed and her husband came back with her two boys before we even began our crafting. Eventually, we got started on the wine glasses by giving them a good wash.

Here's what I like about this craft: for the most part, it's really simple to execute. The only part that might be hard to replicate on my own is the monogramming, but we'll get to that later. To start, you need painter's tape and some scrap paper.

Wrap the part of the glass you don't want to paint gold and then tape it to secure it. 

We put a couple pieces of tape around the base just to ensure an even line.

For the spray paint portion of the craft, you should really take it outside, lest you relish the idea of a contact high...and painting your carpet gold. Now, that's a craft idea!

Follow the directions for spray painting and get after it.

Paint both the top and bottom of the glass, then turn upside down to dry. Careful not to spray it on too thick, otherwise you'll see paint drips.

After applying the second coat, remove the tape before it dries. This will help prevent peeling off the paint when it's dried.

You could easily stop here, but being the world-class crafter that she is, Taylor owns something called a "Cameo". I'm not entirely sure what it is, but basically it will make a stencil of anything you can imagine. You slide a swatch of vinyl in the machine and it cuts out the shape of whatever you design. We kept it simple and did initials on our glasses.

You pop out the letters and then using transfer paper to move them to the glass.

In addition to the stencils, you'll also need this:

Etching cream looks like a paint, but it's actually a cream that etches away at layers of glass, giving you that textured effect wherever you use it on the glass.

Using a paint brush, we painted on a fairly heavy coat on top of our letters. (Tip: the thicker the coat of etching cream, the deeper the etching will appear.)

While we waited for the etching cream to dry (about 5 minutes), I took some time to document Taylor's crafting resources. Please take note of her cubby filled with fabric swatches, and jars of buttons, straight pins, and other stuff for sewing that I don't understand:

She also has this really clever way of storing ribbon underneath her sewing desk. Is a sewing desk a thing?

Eventually, you rinse off the etching cream and voila! Your monogrammed glass is complete.

Pardon my fingerprints. And also, don't try and steal my identity. Kthanks.

 

As far as maintenance, I have no clue if these are dishwasher safe, so I'm not taking any chances and I'm hand washing these as we use them. Interestingly, Kyle was disappointed that I didn't make one with a "K" on it for him. I had no idea Kyle was so into gold stemware. Learn something new every day.

Huge thank you to Taylor for inviting me into her home, letting me use her crafting supplies, and making me the BEST CRAFTER ON EARTH!*

*More specifically, the best crafter in my apartment.