DIY Mercury Glass

I know I'm late on the whole mercury glass trend, but I just discovered it and I had to make a post about it!
It's so inexpensive to make compared to buying actual mercury glass products.
Here are some inspiration pics...

 Ahhh....

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Ohhh...

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Here's the how to!

To make your glass, you will need Krylon's Looking Glass paint.

I bought mine from Walmart for about $8, which is the cheapest place I've found it. It's also sold at craft stores and home improvement stores.

You will also need a mixture of one part water to one part vinegar in a spray bottle. I bought this small bottle at the dollar store.

First start by giving your glass a very light spray of the paint. This is not like regular spray paint, you have to be patient and do many light coats. If your like me this will be very hard because you'll want to spray the crap out of it so you can see the results, but it just pools up and dries really slow if you spray too much. The paint sprays very runny and smells like gross strong nail polish remover. Make sure you do this outside or in a well ventilated area, this stuff STINKS! If you spray too much you will get some drip lines, like I did. But it's okay because its just the first layer and you will be doing several more.

Recognize this vase? It's from my knock off Country Door post, I wasn't finished with it! Also, don't judge my work space. It's covered in a million different kinds of spray paint and looks icky.

When using this paint you have to spray the opposite side that you want to have a mirror effect, therefor the inside of this vase was sprayed. Because it is kind of oddly shaped, it was a little difficult to evenly spray into. I had to over-spray it a little and spin it around a few times to get it to coat the bottom half. Glasses with straight lines are much easier to work with, like hurricanes.

Once you get your first thin layer of paint on your glass and it's dried for a couple of minutes, give it a squirt of the water/vinegar solution. Just enough to let it bead up on the inside

Spray your paint right onto the wet vinegar solution on your glass. The vinegar will slightly eat away at the first layer of paint, and it will prevent your current layer of paint for sticking. It gives you a nice mottled appearance.

I repeated this step a few more times to add depth and more of a mirrory finish to the glass. 5-6 coats is recommended for a full mirror finish.

You can stop here, or you can give the glass an even more distressed look by chipping away at the paint

Spray a  microfiber cloth or paper towel with your vinegar solution. Rub in circles along the inside of the glass to chip away at the paint. Of course my hand would only go so far down into the vase, enter the baby bottle brush!

Perfect for getting into tight places! I sprayed the vase and let the water drip down to the bottom, and I gave it a rough rub with the bottle brush to chip off the paint in random places. Thanks for the idea Mom!

Here it is a little chippy

I gave it oneee more light coat of paint, without spraying any vinegar on it. Just to add a slight sheen to the empty areas. Once that was all dry I gave the inside a coat of Krylon's Clear Gloss to seal the insides and keep it from chipping anymore.
I also had some paint that I accidentally got on the outside of the vase, to remove it I sprayed the vinegar on it and did a quick scrub with a sponge and it came right off. Of course you could just tape off your vase with painters tape, but I was too lazy for that :)

Here it is on my mantle, along with two other mercury glass items I sprayed. That crack/lump in my wall is looking pretty good here! Haha! Sorry for the dark photo, I wanted you to be able to see the glow of the candles and this was the best I could do. The picture does not do them justice! They look great, and these all came from the dollar store, including the candles in them I only spend $7 total on them! (not including the spray paint, which I could probably make another 3-4 more) I think they're cute little mismatched mercury glass, and a whole lot cheaper than Ballard's or Pottery Barn's Mercury glass!

I hope you are inspired to make your own! They are so beautiful, and I wish I had some fake flowers to put inside another vase I made, I think these would look great with some spring flowers in them! Somehow I don't own any silk flowers? Huh.
Until next time!
-Kristin