painted pumpkins

Happy DIY day on a brand new day! Make sure you check out all the other great pojects over at A Soft Place to Land.

When I found these little guys at the Dollar Tree last week, I knew they would be the perfect candidates for trying out this faux mercury glass spray paint trick I found over on the DIY Show Off.

This is one of those projects that looks really simple and easy when you see it on someone else’s blog, but in reality becomes a little more complicated when 1. You don’t really know what you’re doing, and 2. You don’t have the all the supplies used in the tutorial. Considering those two little details, I’m pretty happy with the way my fake mercury glass fruit turned out.

Now, If you’d like to hear all the harrowing details of making these, including how I got brown paint in my eye ( I kid. I technically only got it in my eyelashes.) Please keep reading.

Step 1. Acquire cheap fake fruit.

Step 2. Jab a bamboo skewer into the bottom of the fruit and stick it in some old floral foam.

Step 3. Go nuts with silver spray paint. I used Rustoleum Bright Coat Silver.

Everything was going fine until this point.

Step 4. While the silver paint is still wet, splatter the pumpkin with some kind of brown or metallic brown paint. I only had brown acrylic craft paint on hand, so I used that. I figured I could use an old tooth brush to splatter the paint. Ha. I know that splatter painting is one of those elementary school crafts that kids do all the time, so I didn’t think I needed to find any instructions. Twenty minutes later, after I successfully splatter painted my hair, face, and clothes, and only managed to land about three drops of paint on the apple, I seriously re-thought my decision to tackle this without instructions. I wish I’d gotten Brad to video tape the whole process, because I looked pretty hilarious covered in brown paint, shaking a tooth brush at a bunch of silver fruit. Eventually, I managed to get some paint to splatter on the fruit, but I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I’d read these helpful hints first.

Anyhow, despite my acrylic freckles, I think I like my new little centerpiece, and I’d even do it again – but I’d read the instructions first! I hope y’all enjoy these pics of the fruits of my labor (ba bum ching! I couldn’t resist!)

<3

Hattie