Etched Easter Basket Vase

With the first day of Spring behind us and Easter just around the corner, I decided to use my one of my favorite techniques this week to create a quick and pretty flower vase etched with a beautiful basket-weave pattern.  To add interest and a little something different, this time I painted the inside of my vase with pastel green glass paint (found at your local craft store).  You simply add a good amount of paint to the inside of your glass container, swirl it around to coat all of the sides, and then let it drain out upside-down onto a drop cloth or newspaper.  If you plan to add water to the painted side like this, you’ll want to allow the paint to cure for several days to a couple of weeks first (depending on the paint formula you use).

To create my stencil for etching, I chose this basket-weave design from the Design Store.  The design starts out as a square about 6″ x 6″, so I first resized it to fit on one side of my vase.  Then, I made a copy for each side and welded them together to create one stencil that could wrap continuously around my entire vase.  To do this, select the shapes that you’ve overlapped enough to make an even pattern (arrow 1), open the Modify Menu (arrow 2), and click on Weld (arrow 3).  The final design is shown above in black, and I cut this out of stencil vinyl using the standard settings for Vinyl in the Cut Settings Menu.

After transferring the stencil to my vase with some transfer paper, I smoothed an even coat ofetching cream over the top, let it sit for a few minutes, then rinsed it off and removed my stencil.  You can reuse your etching cream, but for quick projects like this I usually choose not to.  Once finished, fill your new “basket” with whatever you like…flowers, candy, or Easter eggs?

Designs Used:

• Basket Weave Background