Cheap Creative Christmas Gifts

by Georgette

If you know someone who hosts a family Christmas dinner, then here is one idea for cheap, creative Christmas gifts for them. Go to a Dollar Tree or other local dollar store chain, and find a likely number of matching glass wine glasses with smooth bowls. They can be clear, red, green, or some combination thereof. Then go to a craft store or department and get some stencil sheet blanks, an Exacto knife, and some glass etching medium.

Measure the circumference of the bowls of the glasses, near the rim, as well as the height of the area that is fairly flat, before the bowls start to angle in toward the stems. This is the space you have to work with, and with which you will judge how to size and space the fonts you are going to play with next in a computer text or art program. The idea is to split up a Christmas prayer into segments of text which will each end up wrapping around the bowls of the glasses. When choosing your fonts, please remember that part of this process is going to involve you cutting the letters out of a thin plastic sheet, so judge in terms of a balance between aesthetics and your skill level with a small knife.

Once you have your strings of text prepared, print them out. Then place the printed sheet under one of the stencil blanks, through which you will be able to see the text. Use a fine-pointed Sharpie or the like to trace the words onto the plastic. (If you think it will help, you might want to start with a pencil and then edit “breaks” into the text so that things like the centers of letters stay where they are meant to, before going over the pencil with the permanent maker to create your final design.) Then, place the stencil blank over a piece of scrap cardboard, and use the Exacto to carve the letters out of the sheet. You are creating your own stencils.

Cut the sheet into strips to separate each line of text-segment into its own stencil. Each of these can be temporarily fixed securely and tightly in place around the chosen area of the bowls of the glasses, using something like packing tape. Then, follow included directions to use the etching medium to transfer the text to the glass, through the stencils. Carefully remove the stencils, check the transferred text for any minor neatening-up that might be needed, and then leave the glasses sitting for the designated amount of time.

When the project is complete, you will have created a beautiful set of “etched” glasses which are not only a distinct table accent for holiday dinners, but which could prove the foundation of a new family tradition. Imagine each person at the table raising their glass and reading their part of the prayer, before beginning dinner!