hi you guys it's theresa with reese
dixon.com and today i'm here in my
studio with a perfect craft to kick off
your holidays with
i am a big fan of mercury glass which
i'm sure you've seen in the stores it's
been a huge trend for the last five
years or so
this um kind of distressed antique glass
you can find it in every single home
decor store but it is a little expensive
and if you're a thrift store shopper
like me you can find all kinds of
amazing glassware for nothing so i'm
always finding something that has a
beautiful shape and wanting to make it
look better and so i've discovered how i
can take that mercury glass look that i
love
and fake it on the thrift store glass
where i love the prices and the shapes
so i found this beautiful
glass urn
it was just clear glass which is just
kind of nothing special but it's got
this fantastic shape so i knew this
would be a perfect candidate for my faux
mercury glass technique
so today what i'm going to be using are
the martha stewart glass paints i did
get these for free but she's not paying
for this video this is all me
so this is her glass spray paint kit so
the first thing i did when i looked at
my inspiration as i saw that
there wasn't any place on the glass that
looked clear everything looked a little
distressed so i wanted to start my first
coat by giving it that kind of a look so
i'm using this spray paint kit i
took a silver paint and i watered it
down with this gloss spray medium
and i gave the entire inside a good
spray and this is great especially since
i have an odd shaped urn
to get every little nook and cranny and
so when i go back later you know it
might be hard to get into some some of
these spots but the spray bottle could
so everything's at least got a little
bit of paint on it everything will look
at least a little bit distressed
so now you have to inject those bright
chrome
accents
right so
i'm going to pull out
all of my little
paint samples here
and make myself a little palette
so i've got a little metallic black i've
got a little glittery silver
here's a kind of gray glitter
i'm just giving myself a bunch of
different options so that as i
paint i can create that mottled effect
but here is my strongest silver and so
this is what i'll be
using the most
okay so i've got myself a little palette
going on here
and now i can just use
whatever tools i have handy to get this
glass
painted i've got different sponge tips
here
i've got these different things that
kind of push paint around but i think
what i'm going to get the effect i like
the most is just with a rag
i'm just gonna take an old shock rag
i like to make sure that my rag is super
crunched up so i get all kinds of good
folds
and then dunk it in my paint and if
you've ever sponge or rag painted before
you
want to keep it um
fairly light on the paint but this time
it's the opposite you want to go for a
little bit of a heavier application
so
i've got this loaded and then i'm just
going to start splotching around and if
you if you go heavy
then you'll really be able to see those
splotches so the trick
is to just continually change the shape
of your rag so that you're not just
repeating the same pattern
if every blotch is the same size then
it's going to look really stupid it's
not going to look right so just keep
cre-crunching re-crinkling it's going to
get messy re-crinkle your rag to make a
bunch of different shapes but get that
paint on fairly heavy and still
blotchy so i'm going to do that step and
i'll just take me just a second
okay i think that's about right
um and now once you've got the first
coat of silver on and while it's still
wet so that you can kind of blend it you
can mix in your other colors now you
want a much much lighter hand with your
other colors especially with the black
you don't want to make this opaque you
still want some spots
showing through where it's just that
initial frost but just a little bit more
contrast will really make the bright
silver pop so i'm going to do some of
this glossy
uh
metallic black and i'm going to mix that
with a little bit of silver
and i'm not going to mix it well i'm not
going to blend it i want i want blotchy
still
remember just a little bit will go a
long way
okay so you can already see the
difference see with the black
popping you see the black starting to
pop through
and just provide a little bit of
contrast against that silver and i'll
just make this silver look more sparkly
up against it
so just
keep layering like this add a little bit
of contrast go back with a little bit
more silver
as you decide it needs it
now look at what a difference that black
makes here i have a lot
and on this side i don't really have
much of any you can see this just kind
of starts to look gray but once you get
that contrast going
see right here you can start to see more
of the splotches through that i have it
fairly far away so maybe you're not able
to see it but i'll make sure i'll get
close-ups before we're done here so
that's it that's how simple it is
it i basically did three different
layers of paint the spray
the silver and then the muddled contrast
and that's all the one thing you can go
wrong in here is by overdoing it you
need to remember that even with your
bright spots you want to leave lots of
areas where it's just
the frosted poking through because if
you get too heavy you won't see the
splotch and the splotch is what makes
this look like mercury glass it's a
technical term i looked it up so here's
my faux mercury glass and here's the
original inspiration and i think that
really the only difference is how bright
this one is but if you're a mercury
glass fan you know they come in all
different kinds of finishes so they're
not always this bright the point is the
splotch and i think we've got that great
so it really couldn't have been any
simpler right and we have this fantastic
technique for just 1.99 thrift store
vase we've got something that would
rival what you would find at your
department stores and i think this will
be perfect for your holiday decorating
because if you're like me you have a
hard time spending a ton of money on
something that's only going to be out
for a month or two and so for this you
can use just maybe a little bit more
black becomes a little more spooky and
it's perfect for your halloween stuff
a little brighter a little more glitter
and then it'll be great for christmas
and you can do all kinds of great floral
displays or displaying collections in
your faux mercury vase so i hope you
guys love it i hope you give it a try
please leave me uh comments questions
and i'll help you out however i can and
subscribe to the channel so you don't
miss anything i've got some great
holiday stuff coming your way in the
next couple of months so be sure and
tune in so you don't miss any of it
thanks you guys see you later bye