Fun with DIY Mercury Glass

Whew! It's been a busy few weeks, but I finally found some time to sit down and blog (before I fall asleep on the couch, probably). 

This is a project I actually did awhile back, in an effort to dress up my new display shelves in the living room. I'd seen the DIY mercury glass idea all over Pinterest and thought this would be the perfect excuse to try it out for myself. The only thing I had to go buy was the Krylon Looking Glass spray paint. 

It's a little pricey, but the cost was outweighed by my intrigue of the mirror-like effect it promised. Since I had several cheap little glass vases, I though I'd better test it out on one of those first.

Out in the back yard, I gave the vase a couple light coats of the Looking Glass spray. It was definitely very reflective! Pretty cool just like that, right?

I like shiny things!

This mercury glass tutorial I had read said to wait about a minute after painting, then spritz a mixture of half water/half vinegar onto the bottle, then pop the little bubbles with a paper towel.  But the Looking Glass paint dried really fast on my vase (maybe because there was a breeze outside?), so I had to blot pretty hard with the paper towel to get the bubbles to pop, therefore removing the paint beneath them. Eventually, though, I started seeing the desired effect. Here's the test vase after -- it's a little tricky to capture the effect in the pictures, but you can kind of see the worn, antique-y look in the close-up.

Since the technique appeared to be working for the most part, I went ahead and repeated it with an empty wine bottle which I planned on turning into a vase. With this one, I sprayed on the water/vinegar almost right after the paint, then blotted. I was amazed at how much faster the Looking Glass spray paint was drying compared to other regular spray paints. 

I was having so much fun with this, I kept going with a third glass vase (told you, I have so many of these lying around). Voila! This one's a little more translucent, but it's still got that reflective, silvery, aged effect.

After that, I managed to stop myself and put the Looking Glass away, so I'd have some left to use for another project. So, what was your last spray paint transformation?

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