The Painted Squirrel: Craft Day!

Just before the holidays last year, I hosted a craft day with my sister Sandy and my BFF Kimmy. Everyone brought over whatever project they were working on and we spent the day doing them together while watching "chick flicks" and having a glass or two of wine. It was a ball so I decided to host another Craft Day last weekend, this time including my other sister, Laura, and two of my nieces, Jenny and Courtney.

I mentioned last week that I just bought a new Cricut machine. I decided to try it out and monogram some wine glasses. I used my coupon at Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a box of 12 wine glasses for about $14. Now to "class" 'em up!

The process to make these glasses was actually very easy. The cartridge that comes with the Cricut (there are many you can buy) actually has the monogram programmed into it. I had the machine cut out the monogram on self stick vinyl and I just stuck it onto the side of the glass. Without the machine, you could just print a monogram on your computer, then cut it out using an exacto knife onto the vinyl, which they sell at your local craft store in the Cricut aisle.

I used a product called "Armour Etch" and put it on the part of the glass I wanted to be frosted. You have to put on a fairly thick coat and let it sit for thirty seconds. I let it sit about a minute or so to get a really good frosting.

After a minute, I took the glasses over to the deep sink and rinsed them off really well, then I removed the vinyl. The problem I ran into was that because of the curve of the glass, some of the etching creme oozed under the vinyl in a few places around the circle. Not terrible, but enough that I decided to hand paint a scroll around the edge of the circle in the etching creme so it looked deliberate and no one could tell there had been an "oopsie"!

Love the result!!

Now here are some of the crafts the ladies made - it seems glassware was a theme even though we didn't talk about it beforehand!

First up, my sister Laura. She lost one of her beloved dogs unexpectedly and so for her craft, she decided to paint mugs to honor the dogs she's lost over the years.

Now you might need to sit down for this, but this was Laura's SECOND TIME EVER painting - the results are nothing short of astounding!

My niece Jenny brought a large box of mason jars to paint and to share. They turned out awesome!

Jenny "glitterizing" a mason jar to use as a tea light holder. She didn't love the finished product, but I did, I thought it looked beautiful!

Jenny's second mason jar - absolutely adorable!


My sister Sandy painted one of the jars as well - gorgeous and perfect for Valentines Day!

My niece Courtney opted to paint coffee mugs using blackboard paint. I would have never thought of doing that, but what a great idea!

taping off using masking tape

Sandy also decided to paint some coffee mugs from the set that Laura brought for her dog mugs. She just "threw" them together...sheesh, my family is so talented!

We've all decided that we need to try and do a Craft Day at least once a month. We love being together and I think all of us were inspired!

In other news - we are digging out from Winter Storm Pax (when did we start naming winter storms?). I did another snow"man" and thought I'd share a few photos..stay warm everyone and have a great week!