Dishwasher Safe Frosted Glass

Ruby and I picked up a pretty bouquet of tulips the other day and had fun dispersing them throughout the house. Is there anything better than fresh flowers? I decided to do a little frosting action on this $1 milk bottle and turn it into a vase. I remember frosting mirrors in my high school art class with acid etching cream and painstakingly cutting out every detail with a craft knife. I even remember that I etched a very pretty rose onto my mirror. I've noticed a trend in a lot of DIY vases lately...they aren't dishwasher safe and sometimes they aren't even waterproof! I saw one on pinterest last week that was absolutely gorgeous. It was a glitter vase and after the directions showed how to make it they gave the disclaimer, "Do not use real flowers or water in this vase. To prevent the glitter from scratching off use a toilet paper roll inside and put your flowers inside that." Deal breaker! No matter how pretty it was it just wasn't functional for me. I've painted vases in the past with mixed results---the paint eventually scratches off unless you use glass paint and bake it on to cure. There are several ways to frost glass. You can use frosted vinyl or contact paper to decorate your project, you can spray frosted paint on it, or you can acid etch it. The only durable method is acid etching it. I am going to show you how to frost glass in a matter of minutes and have a vase that will last forever.

DIY Frosted Glass Vase

For this project you will need:

Glass vase

Clear Contact Paper

Acid Etching Cream (found at your local craft store)

Paint Brush

Scissors

Pencil

Penny

Begin by tracing your design on a sheet of clear contact paper. Cut out with scissors. Make sure your glass is clean and dry. Peel off the backing of the contact paper and adhere to your vase in whatever design/pattern you'd like!

Apply a THICK coat of etching cream with your paint brush.

Seriously, glob it on there. Let sit for 10-20 minutes (follow the specified time on the bottle).

My bottle of acid etching cream is 5 years old. This stuff lasts forever and you can brush off the excess and put it back in your bottle  to make it last even longer!

Brush excess cream back into your acid etching cream container, if desired. Rinse thoroughly in the sink.

Do not panic if it looks clear! The frosted effect will show up after you dry the outside of the bottle.

Remove contact paper designs.

And that is it! It is fun to customize jars and vases like these. I made personalized jars for the kids' teachers one year. They were a hit! Go ahead and etch your name to your casserole dishes or monogram a cookie jar while you're at it.

And the best part? When you need to wash your vase don't worry about hand washing it. Just throw  place it in the dishwasher with a Finish®  Max in 1™ capsule and you are set!

I've used Finish® capsules for quite some time to really clean my dishes, especially my glassware. When we first moved into our house the dishwasher didn't seem to work well. It was brand new and we thought it was defective. It didn't dry the dishes well and it didn't seem to wash them that great either. The warranty technician came out to take a look and said that the dishwasher was fine, but there were a few things I could do to help it run better.

1. The type of detergent you use makes a big difference, to make sure to use a rinse aid (or a detergent with a rinse aid) to help with drying.

2. DON'T over crowd the dishwasher (GUILTY!!!!)

3. Run hot water into your sink before turning your dishwasher on. This is easy to do since I rinse my dishes with hot water before putting them in the dishwasher.

All of these tips helped and our dishwasher began to work like a charm! My glasses started coming out clear again and were DRY (or very close to it).