Glass Etching Craftiness and Hobtoberfest

When Hannah was born, all my focus, energy, and identity was poured into her precious life and becoming the mother she needed from me.  It's what I wanted.  The greater purpose in life I prayed to be given.  And it's been hard.  It's been rewarding.  It's been wonderful.

Now with the rearrangement of life and our priorities, I realize it's also important to keeps my other interests, hobbies, and friendships going.  I've forgotten how fun it is to get creative and craft.  They make me happy, and Hannah loves a happy Mommy.

Wes and I hosted a party this fall.  We called it "Hobtoberfest".  A play on words with our last name and Oktoberfest.  It was a party for all things fall.  Fall beer, German food, and football.

The idea came to me to give out frosted beer mugs at the party to each of our guests.  I thought it would be even cooler if they were glass etched to say "Hobtoberfest".  So I ran to the dollar store to get my glass steins, and the craft store to get my stencil and etching cream.

First I washed all of them before applying the stencil and cream.

I originally had a really awesome Old English font, but I realized after I brought it home that it was a one-time use stencil which was going to get expensive multiplied by 12 mugs.  So I went back and got these reusable stencils at Hobby Lobby.  They stuck great to the glass time after time.  And then I used painters tape to help keep my letters level and to avoid the cream getting outside of my letter stencil.

Then you leave on the cream for just a minute then rinse off with warm water, and the glass etch will stay forever, even through the wash!  I wish I had left the cream on a little longer to make the letters a little darker.  It's a little hard to see in this picture.

We would never have been able to pull everything together that day without the help of our fantastic friends, Jenny and Jakob.

There was food at this party I promise.  We had all sorts of fall dips, bratwursts, pretzels, cupcakes, and more.  But the beer took center stage.  We filled several growlers with specialty fall brews fresh on tap from Hop City here in Birmingham.  There was also plenty of Sam Adams Octoberfest-Weston's favorite brew.

 

It was really hot that day.  Fall really doesn't start in Alabama until late October or really even November.  So folks stayed indoors at first until it started to cool off in the late afternoon.  Football was on all the TV's.  Georgia and Oklahoma both had big games that day, and our friends can't miss cheering on their alma maters.

Our friends, Adam and Roopan, had their baby girl the same week we had Hannah.  Nora Grace is her name, and Nora Grace and Hannah became fast friends and held hands without anyone's encouragement.  It was so adorable.

Hard to believe this guy was an adorable 6-week old when we all moved to B'ham.

And one last cheers after everyone left and Hannah was in bed.  So much fun!

Thanks for everyone coming over to celebrate fall finally arriving!  We had a blast.

Also, a very special Happy Birthday to my dad today!!  He's such a fantastic Dad.  I love being a daddy's girl.  One of my fondest memories with my dad is going to our local bakery to pick up doughnuts nearly every Saturday morning.  It was our errand to run, and we would sing "if you're happy and you know it" on the way in the car.  When we got there, my dad would set me up on the counter, and the bakery lady would sneak me a doughnut hole.  He was that kind of dad.  Always doing the little things that reinforced the important stuff-like that I'm important and loved.  I hope he knows too how important and loved he is as well.  Happy Birthday!