Mrs. Cherry Blossom, San Francisco
Age and Occupation: 27, Administrative Asst.
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, District Sales Manager
Engagement Date: December 23, 2006
Wedding Date: May 3, 2008
Venue: Zen Garden in the East Bay w/ reception in a floor-to-ceiling window Atrium with views of the Zen Garden
About Me: After 5 years of dating, we're finally ready to get hitched! I am a lovah of all things wedding, creative, crafty, and definitely DIY bc I love to add a personal touch to everything I gift or make. In my free time, I like to bake, spend time with our family, friends, and my doggies, read my guilty pleasure celebrity gossip and catch up on TV shows.
My Biggest Wedding DIY Endeavor… Possibly
August 29th, 2007 @ 12:25 pm by Mrs. Cherry Blossom
I wasn’t planning on posting this until I had completed my project but seeing as it might be helpful to other brides 
, I plan to share with you all my biggest DIY project for the wedding …. our votive favors and decorations.
I’ve always had a love for things etched and was extremely excited that it was available to DIY. Being able to incorporate it into the wedding was not exactly a challenge since I had pitched this idea to Mr. CB before we were engaged. The challenge was executing it and showing the real sample to him. Mr. CB was very against the idea at first because he did not want me to bleed blood and sweat and spend hours on the millions of DIY projects that I plan to do, but once he saw these, he was on board 500%. My first sample project, decor:
Exhibit A: Our decorative votive candles for the tables and for the cocktail hour area:
Hard to picture it just like that right?
Now picture it next to my other DIY project, my cube votives (I’ll share the details on those next time)…
I plan to glue pink glitter to the tea lights to give it a little bit more umph, and add more sakuras to the votives but you get the overall picture.
The HOW TO?? Here’s how:
Materials:
1.) Armour Etching Cream - I got the biggest bottle available with the 50% off Joann’s coupon.
2.) Carl’s Sakura Craft Punch - I got the Large, Medium, Small, and Mini all off Ebay
3.) Mailing Labels
4.) Qtips
Step 1: I punched out a million sakuras, small and mini, and cut them out one by one. I kept the actual sakura punch outs which I will use for something else. Note: I printed up a cherry blossom pattern onto the mailing labels so that the punched out sakura that I will use later will not be the boring white of the labels. DOUBLE SCORE on use!
Step 2: Apply templates onto votive in the pattern desired
Step 3: Apply Etching Cream onto template areas that you want etched with a Qtip, be sure to be generous on the cream.
Step 4: Allow the etched votive to stand for 5 mins (per bottle instruction), I came back after 15 mins to let it really soak in.
Step 5: Run votive under running water to remove all cream
Step 6: Remove templates
Step 7: Votive Complete! and Voila
Exhibit B: Our favors - to be filled with pink and brown jelly beans
Apply * notice the cherry blossom paper * the Sakura punch out will be put to good use.
The picture is blurry but you can kind of see the part where it is etched.
And VOILA! On the sides are more of the smaller sakura punch outs like the ones for decor above.
TIPS:
Trial and Error: I tried to make the template using a transparency sheet and taping it on, big mistake! This is what you end up with, as Mr. CB would say, it looked like I sneezed on it:
- I also bought a roll of contact paper to punch out the template - it didn’t work because the punch stretched out the sheet, leaving me with a blotched punch out with strands of plastic sticking out.
- Your best bet - stick with an adhesive sheet like mailing labels. My first couple of tries were punched out from old Hello Kitty stickers I have at home.
- Make sure to wear gloves, which I did not do, shame on me. And work in a well ventilated area.
* Unfortunately, I won’t be able to use these straight edged votives because the cheapest I’ve found was 66 cents each before shipping. The ones I ordered from Cudge.net are slightly tapered at the bottom, are about 46 cents each after shipping, and should be arriving on Thursday - all 288 of them so that I can get started on them now since I have over 200 of them that I have to etch.
And to save money, I may consider changing the letter J on the favor to look like this:
Because to buy full alphabet sheets just to use the letter J would run me about $30. I could purchase the alphabet punch from Michaels for $40 that has a skinner J …. What do you think? Or should I use the the J punch above that was so graciously lent to me by a friend.
Hope you found this tutorial helpful. This is may be my biggest project ever and I am super proud of them, so I really hope our guests will enjoy them.
33 Responses to “My Biggest Wedding DIY Endeavor… Possibly”
amazing!! i had no idea you to DIY a votive like that!! thanks so much for sharing! i love sakuras!
cherry blossom, you are awesome.
hey that rhymed.
i was trying like mad and in vein (vain?) to find a way to decorate my votives with screenprinted vellum. long story short it may not be possible for me.
but these are *beautiful!* and i can do that! i even have the stuff already!!
bless your cotton socks!
they look awesome! how did you get the “J” part on there?
very cool, miss cb. very cool.
Wow, this DIY entry is one of the best ones so far on WB.
I like the large J myself - more of an impact and will be pretty allowing more light to glow through.
I LOVE this!!!
use the j punch above borrowed from your friend. it’s fat, but looks pretty good. save your $40 for something else… i really love how easy this took to make! and the results are lovely! thanks for sharing your trial and error lessons with us too!
Love it. Total awesomeness. Is the J for Mr CB’s last name?
WOW these are AWESOME! i have never seen a diy project like this before…such a great idea!!
awesome job!! very creative! where’d you get the cherry blossom picture to print onto the labels? please share!
Wow! The votives look great Miss CB! Thanks for making this post and including so many pics. I didn’t realize doing glass etching could be so straightforward.
LOVE LOVE LOVE them! I was wondering what do to with all of the little votives I bought (At Big Lots for .29, they always have them.)and now I know! You made it sound super easy, time consuming, but sooo worth the effort. They came out GREAT!
That is awesome, I never realized that was something you could really DIY. I am sure your guests will love them.
I love etching things, it’s so much fun!!! But shhh, don’t tell everybody how easy it is — you’ll spoil our secret and they won’t be impressed anymore. 
LOVE the idea of using mailing labels and a craft punch, Miss C.B. I’ve only used stickers and then etched around them, but it uses SO much more of the pricey cream. (And speaking of pricey cream, you know it can be reused, right? Just scrape any larger blobs back into the jar when you’re done.)
Final PSA for everyone — I second Miss C.B.’s caution to use rubber gloves. That stuff burns!
Those came out beautiful. Just a word of advice if — if you decide to put glitter, you have to find the right glue!! My aunt made these gorgeous christmas votives, only to have the things melt off the glass once the candles were lit.
So hot glue gun is out! You’ll need a temperature safe glue. 
Just this past weekend, I etched “mr.” and “mrs.” into champagne flutes to use for toasting. now that i know how easy it is, imagine the things I can etch. no glass surface is safe!
so awesome! I wish I could convince mr. gb to do anther diy task, but he’ll poke my eyes out if I do!
then again, I wanted so much to have cute glassware…
i honestly can’t believe it was that easy. thanks for the tutorial! i can definitely use this for christmas presents or something!
awesome job…. the tables are gonna look great . i can’t wait to see how it all comes together.
OMG, I love it!! Thanks for the great tutorial!!!
great job!! it’s also a great way to make nice gifts for your bridal party (ie. etched champagne flutes, etc.) or for any other celebration!
Brilliant! I’m all psyched to go etch stuff now. Did you have any problems with the mailing labels leaving sticky crap all over the glass when you tried to peel it off?
First off - thank you to everyone and their love for the votives. They are definitely going to be time consuming but made with tons of love and I really love them. I am glad that everyone likes them and found the tutorial helpful.
lil’k - there are actually two ways to get the j on there. so as to use “less” cream, I chose to put the large sakura punch out as that border surrounding the j. and put a J sticker in the middle and then applied etching cream. that way, when i removed the adhesive, only the areas that were not exposed to the cream would be etched. I could doubly use the leftover J’s left over like the sakura punch outs to etch the letter J on there instead. hope that made sense.
Jonnie - Mr. CB and I both share the same first name initial and we chose to use that instead of the initial of his last name instead.
Leesuh1 - One of my awesome BMs sent me that print originally to use for my desktop but seeing as I didnt want to waste the boring white labels, I was able to put it good use. I will locate them and email them.
Brenda - 29 cents eACH?!? that is one awesome deal. I am ubber jealous of your steal. we wont even get into my neuroticness to finally use the ones from cudge.net.
Miss Tulip - HI FIVE to another etching lovah and thanks for the tip. I’ve tried to be generous and stingy at the same time so that I could just wash em off. hahah.
Mrs. Lemon - great idea. I was planning to make other thank you gifts for those that are helping us with the wedding. =)
Diana - thanks for your wonderful tip. I was going to trial and error with my elmer’s glue, I’ll let you know how that goes. but i appreciate the tip! didnt think of that one!
sarahdoo - “bless your cotton socks!” hahah that just cracked me up like crazy!
rzblna - after running the mailing labels under water and having it soak up the cream, it was pretty easy to remove, the smaller ones just came right off smoothly. the larger ones a tiny bit more difficult but no sticky residue left over.
hope that answers everyone’s questions. Good luck and happy etching!
Totally doing this! They look great.
So. Freakin. Awesome!!!! I WISH I HAD SEEN THIS MONTHS AGO!!! Hrmm, I have 10 days left til the wedding… time for another DIY project?? Hahah, doubtful.
Wow I never knew there was such a thing as an etching cream! I still remember years ago my friends and I took FOREVER etching some stuff onto a glass frame with….whatever sharp objects we could find. Haha I feel so ghetto now especially after seeing how nice your votives turned out! Great job!
I love this idea! Thanks for the tutorial Miss Cherry Blossom!
[…] Remember my other DIY votives? […]
you inspired me to do this! I just finished the last of 250 votives with 4 snowflakes on each one for my wedding in 2 weeks. thanks for the great idea, they look AMAZING! and what a fun takeaway!
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