Make Your Own Monday: Faux Mercury Glass Pumpkins

Ahhh... Monday again... most people are not a fan of Monday's and I'm not really either.  It means I have to get up at 5:45 and wrangle the girls to the bus.  But I do enjoy the absolute quiet that settles over the house when I get back from the bus stop.  It's still early enough at 6:45 to have that super quiet feel.  Love it!

This past weekend we went to Apple Annie's in Willcox, AZ for a day of fun.  We had such a great time last year that we had to do it again!  This time we wen't with some of our older kids, Trevor with his wife, Molli, and little girl, Alana, and our other son, Alex.  We had lunch in the orchard, bought some yummy fudge {which I had for breakfast today, shame!}, got happily lost in their ginormous corn maze, ate some shaved ice, and went on a hayride to pick pumpkins.  They day was only marred by Hailey splatting face first in the pumpkin patch {those vines are prickly!} and someone making off with the big pumpkin Trevor and family had picked out.  Overall though, it was a great day!  I took some cute pictures that I just had to share.

Eat a hotdog in the middle of an apple orchard? Why yes, I think I will, thank you very much!

The girls got to make their own jump ropes with a rope maker.  They thought this was awesome!

The apples of my eye, for sure!

The corn maze was awesome.  There was a bridge we came upon in the middle of it that allowed you to see the whole thing from the top.  Towards the end, Victor and I were "accidentally" separated from the others.  We could hear them but they didn't know where we were.  It was too funny to hear the girls talk about what would happen if we got lost in there.

Gotta share cute little Ali hanging out in the pumpkin wagon.  She was starting to get pretty tired.

 Hailey in the pumpkin wagon being... well... Hailey.

My favorite picture of the day: Ali trying to help herself to the Tip Pumpkin.  Hahahaha!

Okay, now that I've forced you to sit through a slide show of  our family outing.... on with the show!

I've decided to try a little something new on my blog.  I want to attempt a new Monday series called "Make your Own Monday."  This series would focus on making your own versions of popular products for less, plus some interesting tutorials on crafting techniques, with the occasional project thrown in.

Today you are going to learn to Make Your Own... Faux Mercury Glass Pumpkins

I came across a tutorial on the blog-o-sphere for doing this recently.  I'll be darned if I can find it again!  In looking around there are several tutorials out there for creating a mercury glass effect.  Some are more authentic looking than what I've done, but they seemed a lot more involved.  I like how easy this method was and it looks pretty cool.  I might try some other methods later.

Essentially, you start out with a cheap-o pumpkin {or other object there's no saying this has to be pumpkins} and end up with a cool-shiny-mottled-silver-and-black pumpkin.

^-- This... to That.. --v

What you'll need is some pumpkins or other objects, a can of shiny black spray paint, and a can of shiny metallic silver spray paint.  I discovered later that there is a product called Krylon Looking Glass Mirror-Like Paint.  If I do this again, I'm totally trying that instead of the regular metallic silver I used.  Don't forget the newspaper and most importantly, folks, do this outside! Do I need to tell you that?  Yeah, I probably do.  Maybe not YOU specifically, but it's those other people who've never spray painted before.  I was a little woozy after doing this outside! Spray painting inside is just right out.

You can see in this photo the difference between just painting  them silver.  The little gourd at the front is just spray painted silver.  The one next to it has the mercury glass effect.  Totally different, don't you think?

The wet black spray paint under the light coating of silver really gives depth and dimension to this project.

Here is the tutorial.  If you are having trouble reading it or would like to save it for later, just click on the image to open it larger.

As always, if you make something based on this tutorial, feel free to post it on your blog or in the VDBC gallery and post a link down in the comments section!

Time to get crafty, people!


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