{ let’s create } the diy mojo is a go-go

Today’s post brought to you by Kelly

It usually takes me forever to get projects done. I think I kind of psych myself out and get intimidated by all the things that I want to do and wondering how I’ll get them all done. Does that ever happen to you? But every now and then, the mojo kicks in and I get on a roll. And the last week and a half, the mojo kicked itself up a few notches and I got everything {plus more} that I wanted to do done, YAY!

These are the projects I told you about in my easter weekend DIY marathon post…

1. Paint the front door – check

It took more coats than I thought, and there were the small issues of it not being warm enough some days and running out of paint with one coat to go. But the front door is now SW Oceanside. and I love it! ♥

2. DIY mercury glass – check

I showed you how I created DIY mercury glass in this post last week. My friend Maureen wondered if it’s  possible to make copper mercury glass. That set the wheels in motion, and I came up with this:

And with a candle:

3. Painted glass bottles – check

The fastest & easiest project – just swoosh around some acrylic paint and a little bit of water inside the bottle, and voila!

4. Homemade chalk paint – check

OMG, this paint is so cool. And it couldn’t be any easier to make. Combine 1/3 cup plaster of paris with 2/3 cup latex paint {I mixed a smaller amount by scaling down the proportions}. Add a tiny bit of warm water if the paint is too thick {but you do want it to be relatively thick }. Then go ahead and paint whatever it is you want to paint, no sanding or priming required. I had a wood candlestick that I was planning to give to the Salvation Army. I think I’m going to keep it now :-) Here it is painted with the chalk paint version of BM Chelsea Gray {the colour I painted my gallery wall} and sanded to distress the finish.

I rubbed on some Minwax Clear Paste Wax, buffed, and ended up with this.

And one more recent project – this is the little personalized word art that I mentioned in my high street/low street post:

The best thing about all these projects is that they’re inexpensive & easy to do. And everything you need to make them is available at your local craft store, Dollar Store, and hardware store. What projects have you been working on lately? I’d love to see them!

Linking up to Wow Us Wednesdays at Savvy Southern Style

{ let’s create } diy mercury glass

DIY mercury glass is a project that’s been on my to-do list for a while… and now I can check it off, ‘cause the mercury glass is done! Woot! It was a fun and easy project – although my first attempt wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped.

There are a lot of DIY mercury glass tutorials out there that are really similar to each other, so I just picked a random one and ran with it. In a nutshell – spray five light coats of Krylon Looking Glass Paint onto the inside of a glass piece, waiting about a minute between each coat. Let dry for about 5-10 minutes after the last coat, then lightly spray a 50/50 mixture of water and vinegar onto the paint. Let sit for about 20 seconds, then rub with a damp paper towel to remove flakes of the paint, and voila, mercury glass. But my results weren’t exactly what I was hoping for… plus it took a LOT of elbow grease to rub the paint off.

 

So I decided to do my own thing to create the mercury glass look I was going for. I combined ideas from different tutorials, and came up with a technique that I think created a look that’s pretty close to real mercury glass…

Sorry about the lack of in-progress pictures – I was wearing gloves and getting paint all over myself and trying to go fast so I wouldn’t inhale too many fumes, so the camera just sat there watching and not actually taking pictures. But the process is easy…

What you need

• Krylon Looking Glass Paint
• 50/50 mixture of water and vinegar in a spray bottle
• Glass piece with an opening large enough to fit your hand into {check out the Dollar Store}
• Paper towels
• Latex gloves

 

How to do it

1. Lightly spray the water/vinegar mixture on the inside and outside of the glass piece, and then spray a thin coat of paint on the inside and outside of the glass piece. The instructions on the paint can say to spray it on the inside of the glass ONLY, but what can I say, I’m a rebel ;-) Painting both sides gives the piece a lot more depth. The paint is really thin and runny, so you really do have to go lightly with it. Let dry for about a minute. This is how it looks while it’s drying – not pretty, but don’t worry, it gets better!

2. After letting dry for about a minute, put on your latex gloves and gently blot the paint & water with a paper towel. Blot, don’t rub – blotting will give you a mottled texture, rubbing will give you streaks. You won’t have much coverage at this point, but that’s OK – you want to build up layers of paint gradually.

3. Now it’s up to you to decide how much coverage you want. Keep spraying on light coats of the water/vinegar mixture and the paint, letting dry for about a minute after each application and then blotting with a paper towel until you achieve the look that you’re going for. Hold the glass piece up to a light to see how much coverage you have. I did the spraying/blotting process about six times to get the coverage that I wanted.

4. Once the coverage looks good to you, let the piece dry. You can still mottle the paint if you find there are spots where the paint is too solid. Wet a paper towel with vinegar and gently rub the spot in a circular motion. The paint will flake off – go slowly and don’t rub too hard, you don't want to rub all the paint off!

And just because I like to be different, I thought I’d try making a coloured mercury glass votive holder. I have lots of dye re-inker left over from the glitter balls I made for Christmas, so I used that. I squeezed in enough dye to cover the inside of the votive holder. It was pretty thick and didn’t swoosh around too well, so I spread it around with a paper towel and let it dry for about half an hour. Maybe I should have waited longer, but I was anxious to see if this was going to work :-) Then I followed the same process I used to create the mercury glass. Some more dye came off when I blotted, but there was enough left on the glass to give it a purple hue.

Those are the coloured glass bottles in the background. Easy to make – pour in some paint, add a bit of water to make it thin enough to swoosh around inside the bottle, swoosh till the inside of bottle is covered with paint, turn upside to drain & dry, done!

And that’s how easy it is to create your own mercury glass :-) I’d love to create some more pieces, but my lungs need a break from the fumes! It would be better to do this project outside if you can, or at the least in a room with lots of good ventilation.

So what do you think – are you going to take a shot at making your own mercury glass?

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