Jazzing up a glass door

I wanted to do a monogram project. I got the idea here.

I did not want to pay big bucks to have a stencil made (I didn't have big bucks.) So here is what I did.

We had an old glass door covering our front door. I was not crazy about the looks of it, but I liked being able to open the wooden door and have sunlight streaming through our front door. When I started out I planned on doing some glass etching on it so I bought this.

But then I thought, "What if I don't like it?" So I decided to try something less permanent first. So I went into Microsoft Word and created a monogram I like. I used the triple letter monogram for a husband and wife. You put your husband's first initial first, then in the middle goes your last name initial, and last is the wife's first name initial. For Joe and Betty Smith it would look like this: J S B. Enlarge the middle letter to make it stand out. I played around with different fonts to see which one I liked best. My favorite was the Harrington font.

Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule and I found some interesting ideas on the three letter monogram here.

I blew up the initials on MS Word to where each letter filled up one sheet of paper. More specifically I blew up the w and the m to 500 and the r to 600. I went up to format and then font and checked the box next to the outline effect. That way I did not waste ink when I printed it.



Then I started cutting out the letters to make a paper stencil.







Then I sprayed the back with 3M Spray Mount. It is repositionable adhesive and works great on stencils. I would do it outside or in a well ventilated area. It is also better if you have something behind your stencil that can catch extra adhesive.


Then I positioned the stencil on the glass door and stood back to see if it was where I wanted it and straight.


Then I took newspaper and taped it around the stencil so it would block off the rest of the area. Because I did not use etching cream. I used silver spray paint and a touch of gold here and there to give it a real etched look. Nobody has noticed or else it does not look bad enough to say anything. I don't think you can really tell the difference unless you inspect it VERY closely. It has been up for over a year and it still looks great!!!!