Etched Glass Window

So I mentioned on Friday that I might attempt a craft project over the weekend but I was nervous about doing it.  I wanted to take a shabby old window and reverse etch a design on it.  

The purpose of the window is to have it hang outside of our bathroom window to allow us a little more privacy from our neighbors when we have the window open.  We want to let the fresh air in without alarming anyone next door.  

I found an adequately shabby window at an antique store that just needed a little cleaning up and some white paint.  I got to cleaning it up and then this happened.

I had it leaning up on a chaise lounge and ran into the house to get a razor blade to scrape off some paint and a gust of wind blew it over.  Sigh.

Take two.  I found another adequately shabby window and this time I set it on some saw horses to clean and paint it.  

I used white chalk paint to cover the blue.  I wasn't overly careful because I didn't care if it was gloppy or chippy looking.  I also didn't tape off the glass because paint, especially chalk paint, is easily removed from glass with a razor blade.  

Glamour shot.  Not.  The next step was to apply the design.  I went on Etsy and did a search for wall appliques.  You know – those big wall stickers.   I found a design I liked in a size that would work and gives all those crafters that invested in a Cricut machine a purpose.  This is what I ordered: Small Damask Wall Decal.  Also I told the shop owner I didn't care what color vinyl he used since I was using it as a stencil.  Might as well let him use up his stash of unpopular colors.  He was great to work with and even emailed me to make sure he understood what I wanted.  

Issue No. 1.  I carefully marked where the top of the design should go on each pane of glass but once you try to position the decal it sucks itself to glass the second it gets anywhere near it and there is no repositioning.  So one design is slightly higher than the other.  It's less noticeable in the final result.  But OH how it bugs. 

Issue No. 2.  So here we get into the controversial part of this craft project.  And after completing it I'm not sure if I would recommend it or do it again.  It's the etching cream.  The Armour Etch directions say it's not for a large area of etching.  I'm not sure what qualifies as large (and they didn't specify – in fact I could find no directions at all – either on the bottle or their website.  I had to go to trusty old YouTube for directions on how to apply and for how long).  The issue I ran into is how to wash off the very caustic etching cream once it had done its thing.  Small projects you just rinse off in the sink.  I ended up going behind the garage where we have a patch of gravel to rinse off and I hope I haven't totally ruined the ecological balance of our backyard.   

I love the end result.  I will say that using chalk paint and then hosing it off wasn't the smartest move since the chalk paint just wanted to dissolve.  I had to go back and carefully clean the glass to remove the dissolved chalk paint.  Perhaps an acrylic paint, dried an adequate amount of time, would have been a better choice.  But overall the end result was what I was going for so I am happy.  As are our neighbors, I am sure.  

Here's a not very glamorous view of the back of our house. Building a screen around the a/c unit is on our to do list.  As is pulling out all the spent impatiens.  But the etched window does the trick.