Ballard Designs Knock Off Mercury Glass Pedestal Bowl

Browsing Ballard Designs' website is one of my favorite ways to waste time on the internet. Of course its way too rich for my blood so I've never bought anything from there hah. I was so inspired today by their gorgeous mercury glass pedestal bowl.

Both the large and medium ones are listed at $59.99 a piece (yikes!) I knew I had a taper candle holder and large glass bowl both from the dollar store that could mimic the shape, and I knew I could work my faux mercury glass magic to make a look-alike!

Close up of the details- isn't it pretty?

I got out my Krylon looking glass paint, put some vinegar in the spray bottle, and taped off the outside of the bowl

 

I sprayed the paint and then misted it with vinegar, repeated a few times and then blotted it with a rag to chip off more. For a full guide visit my mercury glass tutorial

To complete the look glue the top to the bottom! Truth be told I'm all out of E6000, so in all these pictures they are not attached. Looks like a Walmart trip is in order. But its super simple to do so, just rough up the edge that are going to be glued with some sand paper, apply the glue and attach.

I love the red and silver peaking through here!

 

 

Are they the same? No not exactly, but its totally worth the $58 savings!

Linking up to DIY by Design The Dedicated House All Things Christmas DIY Showoff

Two Dollar Vintage Book Page Wreath

Now that Christmas season is here, (18 days!) I've been decorating like crazy :) Happy crazy that is.
I've seen many variations of the book page wreath on Pinterest, but after my Mom sent me a link to a Robeson Designs tutorial, I decided to give it a shot as I already had everything on hand and figured I had nothing to loose- and it was super easy and totally worth it!

 

My version of the tutorial is below, but definitely check Rebecca Robeson's- she did an awesome job

Okay so start out with a nice vintage book. One you won't feel so awful destroying (that is the difficult part). I got this book for free, but many old books can be found at Salvation Army, Goodwill, yard sales, or library sales for a dollar or less.

My book was from 1959, it had a nice vintagey feel to the pages, the edges were starting to yellow and the binding was barely intact.

 

First rip off the cover, the binding, and start (neatly) tearing away pages I could do this about 20 at a time by hand

In her tutorial Rebecca trims all of her pages with scissors because she has rough edges, I'm assuming this was because she used an older book. My edges weren't completely smooth but it wasn't worth trimming, I was going for an imperfect look anyway. If you choose an older book with tighter binding you might need to cut away some.

Start rolling out your cones! I was going to give detailed instructions on how to do this but it didn't seem worth it. Rebecca does a good job describing it so you can follow  her instructions or just try to roll your own cone. I just winged it and it came out fine. I stapled the bottom and placed a dot of hot glue at the top to hold the flap in place.

Repeat a million times

When you think you've made enough you probably haven't. Hah. I stopped here and later found out I needed to make more. I probably made about 200 cones.

So for the back support of my wreath I used left over cardboard. I traced two plates to make my circles, 10 inches and 6 inches. You could go larger or smaller to a make different size wreath.

I marked my circles at 12,3,6,and 9. You should also measure and mark your center! I did not and my wreath was off center because of it! Mark your center

 

Trim your cardboard down and starting with the outer circle hot glue a cone on each of your marks. I placed my staple on the line.

 

Now fill in between each cone

 

Once you've made it all the way around its time to make another layer on top, gluing this layer slightly closer to the center

Use your circles as a guide to keep center. Repeat until full

Isn't it glorious already?

 

For the center I used a 16 pack of silver and gold jingle bells from the dollar store that I had on hand. I put a bunch of hot glue on the bottom and stuck them in there and then just stacked more on top until I thought it looked full enough

Little ornaments or beads would look good here too, you can really put whatever you like in the center

To hang it I used a simple binder clip and clipped it to my cardboard

I used a cheap suction cup that I had in my junk drawer to stick it to my mirror

That's it!

 

 DIY mercury glass candle holders

 

Cost Breakdown- 

Book - free ($1 or less to buy old book)

Cardboard backing- free (use left over cardboard from old box)

Bling for center - $1 (this can obviously vary)

Hot Glue sticks- 20 cents? I used 4 sticks I think, I had them on hand  so it was free to me

Staples- 30 cents? Again, I had them on hand

I'm calling this an even two dollars for posterity.

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial, happy crafting!

Linking up to Shabby Love Uncommon Designs  DIY by Design The Dedicated House All Things Christmas DIY Showoff Must Love Junk Junk Chic Cottage Organized Clutter Shabby art boutique

 

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....

source

Ohhh...

source

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

DIY How to Glaze Furniture - Tutorial

Glazing is such an awesome tool to have in your arsenal of DIY tricks, and it's so easy. The goal of glazing is to make your furniture, frames, nick-knacks, (whatever you want) look old and imperfect!

Here's what I'll be glazing today

Super cute lamp I was so lucky to have gotten from my Mom for free! It has been in her basement for years! It was in excellent condition, just a little dirty.

First, you'll want to wash and dry what you'll be glazing. If needed, prime and paint in your desired color. I just stuck with the white, but sprayed it again with Krylon Gloss White for a nice even finish. Here's my lamp taken apart and ready to be glazed

Baby Fi supervised the project along with Carl the caterpillar and Issac the sheep.

For the glaze I used Valspar's Clear mixing glaze, I found it in Lowes for $17. I like it because I can tint it whatever color I want. 

At Lowes they can tint a quart or gallon of glaze for you, or you can buy glaze that is already tinted.  I find having the clear allows me the freedom to make whatever color glaze I want. This quart goes a LONG way, so there's no reason to be stuck using only one shade on all my future projects.

For this lamp I wanted my glaze to be a brownish-black. So I mixed about 4 parts glaze to 1 part brown and black paint mixed together. This is a rough estimate, I did not measure it.

 

 Also keep in mind that when the glaze is wet it is going to appear slightly lighter than it is going to dry.

If you are using a different brand follow the manufacturers instructions for exact mixing terms, although it will probably be very similar

Latex paint is recommended to use for the tint, but I used acrylic craft paint because it is what I had on hand, and it worked just fine.

Here is the top of my lamp before I started glazing

Paint on your glaze using a regular brush. Get into the nooks and crannies you want highlighted the most

Wipe away the excess with a rag (or your husbands old (clean) sock - I swear its clean, it just looks gross lol)

Its very easy, but I made a short video to show you how I do it. I'm painting in one hand and holding the camera in the other, so the camera shakes a little, sorry :)

Yes that's Fiona cooing in the background

If you've wiped too much of your glaze off, simply go back and apply another coat. The glaze is slow drying, so you have lots of time to achieve your desired look.

After I've applied and wiped my glaze I like to go back over and "dry brush" 

Here I take a foam brush, $1 at Walmart, add a little glaze and then pat most of it off onto a rag.

Then I simply brush on where I want some added detail. This looks nice on raised edges where your rag probably wiped clean.

You can also dry brush wherever you want some light highlighting.

Here's my lamp all finished. If you wanted to add more dimension you could also give it a light sanding at this point, I left my lamp the way it is.

Here it is in the corner of my living room, next to the Xbox controller of course.

I hope this tutorial helps!