glass stenciling

Did you guys see this idea? It has been making its way around the blog world lately. When I saw it, I instantly thought it was a wonderful idea! It comes from The City Cradle. Check out her tutorial here.


So when I saw this really inspiring idea, I just had to use it at a recent get together I had with some girlfriends. I modified the instructions to fit my needs and I thought I'd share in case you want to do it someday too. I did wine glasses this time, but how cute would martini glasses be!? Any drink glass for that matter. What about even juice glasses for a brunch - it could say "morning". The possibilities are endless. That's probably why I love this idea so much - you can really make it your own.

I am the lucky owner (great xmas gift I received) of a Cricut Expression. I have used this machine so many times on things I didn't even think would be possible. So, once again, I employed this little machine to do the dirty work! No way I was cutting all those little letters out with an exacto knife! I happened to have some sticker paper on hand so I put it in the machine and cut stencils saying "cheers". Now if you had plastic stencils on hand like The City Cradle called for you wouldn't need all this, but I just used what was available to me.




I put the stencils on the glasses taking care to get all the edges of the letters securely down. You don't want anything seeping under the edge. If you have letters with insides (like my e's) make sure to put those on too!


Next, take a lemon and cut it in half. Wet your finger in the lemon and rub it over the letters. Take care not to put any lemon juice near the edge of the stencil (it will show up later). Then quickly, making sure the lemon juice doesn't dry out, sprinkle cinnamon over the letters. Use your finger to press down the cinnamon to ensure it coats completely. I worked in sections - 2-3 letters at a time.




Knock off the excess. I did this over a bowl so I could use the excess again on the next glass. Then gently pull the stencil off. Sometimes you need to clean up the areas between the letters because some of the cinnamon might get where you don't want it.


The City Cradle says to spray with hairspray to set the word in place, but I was worried about having hairspray around the rim of the glass - food safe??? I simply skipped this step and it seemed to work fine. Once the lemon juice was covered and dried, the word stayed just fine.

By the way, I also tried this with super fine sugar instead of cinnamon. It looked good too. I only worry since the super fine sugar is more coarse than the cinnamon it wouldn't stick as well. It might crumble off when people touch their glass??? But to have that option is good in case the brown color won't work in your party color scheme.


And a quick note about the cinnamon... I told my guests as I handed them their glasses to watch out so they didn't get cinnamon on their clothes. Maybe the hairspray would help. You could cover the top of the glass with a paper towel or something to make sure your guests weren't tasting hairspray with each drink. Yuck!

Okay, now I'm off to get a manicure. My hands look pretty rough in these pictures - Yikes!