How To Make an Etched Casserole Dish

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Looking for the perfect hostess or bridal shower gift? Create a custom etched casserole dish with this easy step by step tutorial!

When I was in college I took a personal finance class. While I loathe math and “crunching numbers” (especially after working at financial firm for several years and all I did was prepare spreadsheets and make calculations all day), I think everyone should take a class like this because managing your finances, understanding how to buy a house and how investments work for retirement, is extremely important.

For me, being a young college student living on my own for the first time, it was very eye opening to see all the things that you would need to budget your money for throughout life. Things like unexpected medical bills, car repairs and saving to put a deposit down on an apartment or to buy a home. Sure, those were somewhat obvious expenses, but there were other things we had to budget for. Things like money to travel to visit family, and even wedding and baby shower gifts, since we would have friends in the next few years getting married and having kids and would need to allow room in our budget to buy gifts.

I went along and did our budgeting worksheets thinking that this was something a long ways off, but over the course of my time in college, I slowly had several childhood friends, roommates and co-works get married and start having kids.

Obviously, it’s rude to show up to a bridal shower or wedding empty handed and I have always strived to give gifts that were memorable and useful, but since I was a college kid on a tight budget, I also needed gifts that were affordable too.

Sometime around then, my Mom started making etched glass dishes to give as gifts to friends and family, and I thought that it was a great idea and easily fit into my wedding gift budget. After being invited to many, many weddings, I got very familiar with gift registries and discovered that people always registered for glass baking dishes, drinking glasses, and wine and beer glasses. These are all pretty affordable gifts, and with the glass etching, could be easily customized to make a memorable and thoughtful gift.

Now all these years later, I still love giving a custom etched casserole dish as hostess gifts, wedding gifts and even “welcome to the neighborhood” house warming gifts. It has been fun to create and customize various glass dishes over the years, and always fun to see a friend or family member show up to a backyard barbecue or potluck with the etched casserole dish that I gave them.

In addition to gifting the etched casserole dish, I usually include some other kitchen utensils and kitchen cleaning supplies, like dish soap, and a few packages of Scotch-Brite® Non-Scratch Scrub Sponges and Scotch-Brite® Heavy Duty Scrub Sponges; that I pick up when shopping for other supplies and gifts at Target.

Usually I’ll place all these items in the casserole dish and simply tie a bow around it for easy gift giving, but if I am gifting the etched casserole dish as a house warming, congratulations or get well gift, I’ll usually gift them a hot home cooked dinner (lasagna, casserole, or enchiladas) cooked in the etched casserole dish and gift the dish soap and Scotch-Brite® sponges in a cute metal bucket on the side.

Since it’s wedding season AND moving season, I thought I would share a step by step tutorial on how to make custom etched casserole dishes! Check it out below, and be sure to check out my helpful tips and information too.

How To Make An Etched Casserole Dish
By Heather H. of Kitchen Concoctions: www.kitchen-concoctions.com

Supplies:
Newspaper
Glass casserole dish
Vinyl alphabet stickers
Painters tape
Plastic gloves
Etching cream
Paper plate
Sponge paint brush
Dish soap
Scotch-Brite® Heavy Duty Scrub Sponge

Instructions:
Cover work area with newspaper. Adhere stickers onto side of the casserole dish spelling out desired phrase (dinner, yummy, delicious, gift recipient’s name, etc.).

Use blue painters tape to create a rectangle around the stickers.


Put on gloves and pour some of the etching cream onto a paper plate. Using the sponge paint brush, apply a generous coat of etching cream over the taped and sticker covered area on the glass baking dish, making sure not to get the etching cream on any other part of the baking dish.


Leave etching cream on glass dish for 30 minutes and then rinse off in a clean sink under warm running water.

Remove stickers and painters tape from casserole dish. Using the Scotch-Brite® Heavy Duty Scrub Sponge, wash etched casserole dish in hot, soapy water.

Dry dish thoroughly and use to make favorite lasagna recipe.

Helpful Tips and Information:

• The bottle of etching cream can dry out easily, so make sure it is sealed completely and stored in a cool, dark place.
  
• Use the etching cream on the outside of the glass only and work in a well-ventilated area using gloves.
• A craft cutter can be used to cut phrases onto contact paper to stencil onto dishes.
• Depending on brand of etching cream used, darkness of etched design may vary, and may be hard to see against certain foods.
• Etching cream may not work on all glass surfaces, but I have used this technique to etch baking dishes, glass storage jars, and certain drinking glasses. You may want to test etching cream on a small part of the glass you are using before etching a large area.
• No newlywed or neighbor that just moved thinks to buy dish soap or sponges, and yet it is something that everyone needs. After spending years working as personal chef, cooking instructor and food blogger, I am constantly washing dishing and cleaning the kitchen. I absolutely love my job, but the clean-up part is my least favorite; as I’d much rather be creating delicious recipes, talking to my students or mingling with my dinner guests and fussing over tablescapes than cleaning the kitchen.
   But it IS part of the job, and because of this I have learned many tricks and tips to make clean up and dish duty a little bit more tolerable. That’s why I’m #TeamSponge because I constantly rely on my Scotch-Brite® sponges because they are the right tools for every surface. The Scotch-Brite® Heavy Duty Scrub Sponge (the green sponges) are great for cleaning and scrubbing things the kitchen, garage and outdoor surfaces (like the grill) and are perfect for removing tough, baked-on messes, like cheesy lasagna cooked in my etched casserole dishes! ? And I use the Scotch-Brite® Non-Scratch Scrub Sponge (the blue sponges) to safely clean my expensive non-stick cookware and granite counter tops. 

  

• Take advantage of the current Scotch-Brite® coupons and Ibotta offers, and stock up on Scotch-Brite® sponges for gift giving and personal use at Target.

Do you have a standard wedding or hostess gift? What is your favorite cleaning tool, tip or trick? Please share in the comments below and vote for your favorite team, #TeamSponge or #TeamDishCloth for your chance to win $20,000 towards a kitchen makeover (click here for the Scotch-Brite™ Scrubstakes)!

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