Years ago I was comissioned by a coworker to make a set of wine glasses for her S.O.

She wanted them to have Valentine’s heart candies on them with various sayings, and to have their names on the base (of the glasses with stems). At the time I did not yet own a Cricut, so while my immediate go-to nowadays would be to make the hearts and lettering out of vinyl, that wasn’t an option for me then. I am still proud of how the final glasses turned out, and will now take this opportunity to brag about them to strangers on the internet, like you do.

So how did I paint these glasses if I didn’t have a Cricut and have the drawing ability of a banana slug? I cheated, of course! I printed out pictures of hearts on plain paper, cut them out, taped them to the inside of the glasses, and painted the outside of the glass accordingly. Think of it less as cheating and more as adapting your methods to match your skill level in order to achieve your desired goal. My brain and my nearly-useless hands met in the middle. It was, admittedly, a longer trip for my brain…

I used 2-3 coats of paint per heart because, as you can see, a single coat was VERY rough looking and generally just a hot mess. I painted one or two large hearts per glass with the intent to give them sayings, and then several small hearts all around to fill the empty space. For the sayings, I knew I couldn’t trust myself to hand write them on. I mean, I couldn’t even paint decent hearts without a stencil – lettering was out of the question. So I got myself some alphabet stamps and a red ink pad!

The stamps worked pretty well, though some of the ink ended up a little patchy. I did not trust myself to be able to reapply the stamps in exactly the same position in order to make it better, so I touched it up with red paint and a thin paintbrush. Some of the letters got a little messy, and that couldn’t be fixed without adding more paint, so I did what I could to fix what I could and left the rest as that “handmade” charm. There’s no question that these glasses were hand painted, but with love, so it’s endearing.

I followed the instructions on the paint bottles to cure the paint onto the glasses. This involved placing them in the cool oven, turning it on, letting it get to temp, then turning it off and leaving them in there until it was completely cool again. It helps keep the paint on the glasses even after washing (though I think still hand wash only). Now that I look at them again, I feel like I want to make myself a travel cup with candy hearts on it – but out of vinyl and letting the Cricut handle the lettering.