Make your own Mercury glass...

So my friend recently had a yard sale, and let me tell you, I was buying. (Plus she gave me lots of stuff too.) Anyway she had this star shaped tea light holder that I thought had potential as just a decorative element. I thought it would look great with a mercury glass treatment.

The main ingredient needed is the Looking Glass spray, by Krylon. It's a little expensive, but it's awesome stuff.  I've used it to make mirror before. You just follow the instructions on the can, but they basically entail spraying the back of the glass. I like it because it created the aged mirror look that I love. While making the mirror, I found it sped the process along if you sprayed black paint on the back. (Otherwise you have to put on a lot of coats of the Looking Glass.)

So to get the Mercury glass look, I found it works best to use the looking glass first, a couple light coats. While the Looking Glass is still a little wet, start spraying, other metallic paints - I had chrome and gold- on the backside of the glass. It's also great, while the paint is still wet, to hit it with some sprinkles of water. (It reacts cool with the paint and makes it more Mercury-like.) I forgot this step on my star. I finish off with a light coat of black paint. I just used chalkboard because that's what I had on hand. 

Here's the finished product ... cloudy-mirrored, loveliness. Useful, no. Pretty, yes.

The luck of the shop ...

It can get down right irritating to go into a thrift store and see an absolutely hideous chair that is marked $30. Ugh! Sure, one day it could be fabulous, but there's a lot of work involved...and tons of staples, dust, and unidentifiable objects stuck in crevices.

So, it's always nice to find a completely lovely chair for $2 (no crevices involved). I know who every priced this chair didn't think it was lovable but I don't care. I loved this chair straight away!

Still, even a lovely chair can stand a facelift. I love this technique too. I basically take fabric stiffener and soak my fabric, in this case a lovely silk plaid and then I cover the chair in it. I let it dry and then go over the whole thing with poly -- I like the water based product for easy clean-up.

A nice break from the staple gun.

Some lessons keep teaching

Hello Design Sponge fans, thanks for visiting my blog, please leave a comment, I'm always looking for other interesting blogs to puruse.

Awhile back, I was lucky enough to come across some great Sunday School Lesson Art and I've been coming up with things to do with it ever since. This is my favorite piece. I'm so into chalkboard paint... it's a little ridiculous, but hey it can be useful for telling your hubby you love him every now and again ... or if you need to get some eggs. This little lady looks right at home in my kitchen, now if she could only do the dishes too.

I made this cork board to hang over my son's little desk. Isn't the illustration so cute. Much cuter than the flannel boards they were using when I was in Sunday School.

Speaking of my son, here's Jack. He never likes to get his picture taken, unless I'm trying to get a picture of a chair.

I used this Sunday School Art for an old school desk, along with some old flash cards. I've always had a thing for maps... in fact, I once had a rather nice globe collection, until the aforementioned son got a hold of them. Any ideas for a half a globe? I'd welcome them.

Ahh, the Possibilities

Not many people would get excited to see the table below, but I am not most people.

In this modest little table, I saw the realization of a project that I've had on my mind for several months.

I'm pretty happy with the results and I think the pooches are too.
You see, our Jack Russell, Buddy, is a problem child and is not allowed on the furniture (aggression control measure.) So, I made him a nice bed, but the problem was that our little dachshund, Shamus, is also a problem child and he always takes Buddy's bed. I'm hoping this new bed will satisfy both these needy little creatures.

I know it's aesthetics satisfy me.