Put on safety goggles and a flame-resistant coat.
Select a design. The design must be rendered as a line drawing, with thick line weights so the design can be successfully etched onto a piece of glass. Draw a sketch of the line drawing with a pencil on a piece of paper.
Use a pencil or marker to draw the design on the hand-cut or plotter-cut mask (or carbon paper). Cut the mask design out with a knife.
Stick the cut-out mask design onto the glass. Sequentially remove the pieces of the mask while it is on the glass, which are the areas that will be later sandblasted. If the piece has multi-stage carving, the mask piece will be peeled off with each step of the carving process.
Expose the drawn design to an ultra-violet lightbulb to create a photo resist, instead of using a hand-cut mask. Spray the image with high-pressure water spray to develop the resist. Let the resist design dry. Place the resist image on the glass.
Place the glass, once the mask or resist is on the glass, in a blasting booth or "glove box." The blasting booth will blast an abrasive material against the surface of the glass under high pressure. Place arms in the gloves attached to the glove holes of the cabinet, and view the glass through a window to turn the blast on and off while using a foot pedal to carve out the pieces of glass designated for carving.
(Blasting booths can be purchased online by anyone and do not require a license to operate them. However, because using this type of booth can be potentially hazardous, carefully read the machine's instructions and always wear safety goggles and flame-resistant coat.)
Remove the glass from the blasting booth after it is carved. Let the glass cool for about one hour.
After the glass is carved, the blasted image can be painted as desired using special paint for glass.