Faux Mercury glass lamps

 I thought I'd share a project I did a few weeks ago with you all! I am sure some of you have probably seen some of the "faux mercury glass" that's been going around. It looks amazing and was supposed to be easy. Now real mercury glass...although gorgeous...has quite the price tag! And if you are like me and have a small budget but a big imagination, you too can have mercury glass! I know that it probably would've been smart to start off with something I didn't really care about..such as a free florist vase...but I'm not always the most logical and I tend to just dive in to projects! I had a couple glass lamps that I was dying to try to make into mercury glass. Here is a tutorial of sorts on how to do what I did.

Materials you will need:
Glass lamp or votive holder or vase
Spray bottle of water
A couple colors of silver spray paint (i used Krylon's Brilliant Silver and Matte Aluminum)
Paper towel for cleaning drips and newspaper for setting stuff on to dry

To get started, you will need to clean the inside and outside of your lamp as well as possible. I used a dry paper towel because mine were mostly clean...just a tad dusty. Once they are clean and dry you will tip the lamp upside down so the open bottom is facing up. Balance the lamp (on top of several sheets of newspaper) resting on the top part that the bulb screws in to..whatever that is called! Take your spray bottle and spray water into the inside of the lamp. The idea is that you want to see visible water droplets on the inside. Right after spraying the water, grab one of your cans of spraypaint and star spraying the paint on the inside only...right over the top of the water drops. I found that the paint will kind of billow around inside of the lamp and then settle after a couple mins. I used one color and sprayed several good sprays inside the lamp, and then grabbed the other color and did the same thing. I then tipped the lamp right side up and let it sit on the newspaper and dry (water and paint will run out...that's ok) After 10 mins or so (it was a warm day so it dried quickly) I came back, tipped it upside down and roughed up the paint with a chopstick (mercury glass looks weathered and uneven and spotty...that's part of the appeal) I made scratches and holes in the paint to give it a distressed look. Then I sprayed it again with water and then did the paint treatment a second time. After I was done I let it dry the same way as before. Make sure that after you tip it right side up and let the water drip out that you clean up any paint that gets on the outside...if you let it dry its a pain to get off.
Let the lamp (or jar or whatever) dry thoroughly and then its ready to use! I absolutely love how this turned out. It was so easy and is really unique looking. This would be great to do to votive holders or wine glasses to make a sparkly holiday centerpiece! If you do this to a candle holder (which I HIGHLY recommend) you will be in Looove! It looks amazing with a tea light twinkling inside! Hope you all give this a try...its so easy and really fun! Happy Thanksgiving!!!