f The Bugbytes: Etched Mirror Christmas Ornament

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Welcome to The Bug Bytes a site/blog mainly for Papercrafting and some photography and other stuff thrown in here & there. Add in some die cutting machine, scrapbooking tools, cameras, scissors , glue and...... My name is Pam. If you have been redirected from Papillon Digital Design you have come to the right place.Hope you get inspired by the projects, videos and files. Would love it if you could leave comments and become a follower. (Word verification is turned ON to avoid spam. Sorry for that inconvenience.) Would love it if you would also share your project here . If you find a linky under the post do share your project by posting link there or if you do not find a linky post your link in the comments.Thank you for visiting. The website Papillon digital designs has changed to Papillon Digital Design so if the link gives and error or takes you to page with chinese characters then please drop the 's' in the link at the end of papillondigitaldesigns and try . That is change papillondigitaldesigns to papillondigitaldesign and try the link.

November 13, 2011

Etched Mirror Christmas Ornament

Hello, my lovelies! Carole here from On My Craftroom Wall. I'm so glad to be here this month with a project that I really had fun making. I attended an event yesterday that had a voluntary ornament swap included. This project is the result of my participation in that event.

I purchased this pack of mirrored ornaments at Michaels.



I removed the silver cord to make it easier to etch.

Next I pulled out my Cricut vinyl and transfer tape. A tip about vinyl. I once read on Diane Campbell's (Capadia Designs) blog that she thought Cricut vinyl worked best for etching. And I must agree. Resist the tremendous urge you will have to use less expensive vinyl. Etching is not something you can un-do and I have found that I get better results with the Cricut vinyl.

After pulling out this brushed silver vinyl, it seemed the texture was different so I went and pulled out some blue instead. It was a wise decision. Not only was the texture what I needed, it showed up better on the mirrored surface.

I laid out my design on my Gypsy using the following Cricut cartridge cuts and sizes:

George and Basic Shapes-Circle cut at 2.49" using Silhouette feature
Winter Lace-snowflake cut at .87"
Birthday Cake-2011 cut at 1.00"

I welded the star, the "2" and a "1" to the inside of the circle. Not sure if I was going to like the negative or the positive of the design better, I decided to etch both before deciding. I had 6 ornaments and only needed 5 for the exchange so I felt I had one extra to test.

Here I am applying a nice thick coat of etching cream. I let this cream sit on it for like 30 minutes because I was busy doing something (watching tv). I rinsed off the cream under warm running water and wiped dry with a paper towel.

Next the big reveal! I pulled off the vinyl and discarded it. 
I decided I liked both the negative and positive etched designs so I did the rest of my ornaments using both. Which saved me lots of time and vinyl by using all the cuts.

By the way, I placed the circle slightly off center and liked the effect a lot. Here are my 6 etched mirrored ornaments.

I didn't just want the front to be pretty, so I decided I needed to decorate the back of the ornament as well. Using white smooth Bazill cardstock, I cut 2 snowflake doily cuts from the Martha Stewart Elegant Cake Art cartridge at 2.75" and 1 snowflake doily shadow cut also at 2.75"
I ran one of the doily cuts and the shadow cut through the Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots embossing folder.

I adhered the embossed snowflake doily to the unembossed snowflake doily using pop dots. I adhered these two layers to the shadow (unembossed side) also using pop dots.

 I centered the ornament on the front side of the shadow cut and using a pencil, marked the hole.
 Next I punched a hole through all three layers of cardstock.
 Using my hot glue gun I adhered the mirrored ornament to the cardstock.
I threaded a lavendar organza ribbon through the hole and tied a knot.  I added a lavendar sparkly adhesive raindot to the center of the snowflake.

Here is the back of the ornament:

Here is the front of the negative etched ornament.
Thank you for letting me share this project with you! Have a happy Sunday!

Carole

10 comments :

mfc.melissamade2 said... 1

Wow these are gorgeous!!! What a fabulous idea - I never thought about etching on mirrors! I'm so going to try this!
Thanks for sharing!
Hugs,
M

LisaB said... 2

They are great Carole. Thanks for sharing the technique.

papillon digital design said... 3

This is so so cute! Love it. TFS

Sandy from Ukiah said... 4

I love these... And they don ' look to difficult to make ... So cute

Kelly said... 5

What a fabulous idea. Love the decorations x

Dayna Sabrina said... 6

Carole, these are absolutely precious! Thanks for sharing them with us.

Audrey Frelx said... 7

Great tutorial, and your mirror ornaments are just so adorable!

MelodyR aka Ry&MysMom said... 8

Thanks for sharing! They turned out so pretty. Love that you decided to decorate te back too!

JenL said... 9

Beautiful ornaments!! It's been a long time since I've done any glass/mirror etching, you've inspired me to do some more. TFS

Sheila aka SassyLady said... 10

I love etching and this ia a really cool project! Love it! TFS

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