Fake Mercury Glass Candle Holders DIY

During the holiday season I find myself wanting sparkle in the house. Sparkly ornaments, sparkly decorations and sparkly candle holders. In my plans for holiday crafts, I thought it might be easy to make mercury glass candle holders DIY style. I’ve seen them in catalogs and with the wonders of spray paint these days I thought it would be fun to try.

First I looked up fake mercury glass and what was the first hit on my search? Gina at The Shabby Chic Cottage made some earlier in the year. Take a look.

Roeshel at The DIY Showoff also make some fake mercury glass last year, with pumpkins.

Armed with this expert bloggy knowledge I lined up my supplies. I got two $1.00 candle holders from the dollar store {found some sparkly snowflakes while I was there too} and pulled out the paint.  We had silver spray paint and silver and black craft paint so I began with that.

Check out this set up in my new craft area in the basement. A craft area, yahoo! I can’t wait to organize it, take all my supplies down there, get crafty with it…wait, back to the candle holders.

I wanted the look to be translucent with some of the brown and black spots you see on real mercury glass so I put the paint on thin. Here they are after 1 coat of silver craft paint.

All of the paint was applied to the inside of the glass.

Then I flicked some black and brown craft paint on with a toothbrush. Finally I grabbed the good old metallic spray paint. The mother spray paint. This stuff is shiny! And I gently sprayed that inside so it was light. Again, the paint is on the inside.

This looked pretty good but wasn’t exactly what I was going for.

I wanted the paint to blend in a little more so I grabbed a paper towel and started blotting it a bit.
Make sure you wear a glove for this or you’ll get paint half way up your arm. Not a good look for any crafter 🙂

Dab dab dab away. Make sure marks that the paper towel might leave don’t show. Fold it up small and work small sections at a time.

Here is what I ended up with. Nice and translucent just like I wanted. The brown didn’t show up so much, next time I’d put more on.

Not so bad right? I wasn’t so sure at the spray paint phase but now I likey! Now I just have to let them dry overnight and get some candles in them.

Whoop here they are. Got these at the Christmas Tree shop, the candles that is. I’ve been looking for inexpensive pillars for a while. They are pricey! $6 for 2 no way Jose. Christmas Tree Shop has them for about 2 bucks each.

Wait let me turn down the lights.

What do you think of the look? Am I a good mercury glass faker?

For now I have them on the table in our bedroom.

The hubs thinks I should make more and sell them as a side business. He’s sweet. Maybe someday 🙂

Sharing with Just Something I Whipped Up @ The Girl Creative, The DIY Showoff Project Parade, Tip Me Tuesday at Tip Junkie, Take-a-Look Tuesday at Sugar Bee, Get Your Craft On at Today’s Creative Blog.

 

Find all of my craft projects here.