Hi guys!
As you can probably tell, I’m deviating from my Sunday schedule, mostly because I’m too busy to have something planned for every week. But this is cool because sometimes I’ll have more than one thing to post and you don’t have to wait a week to be able to see it. So here’s today’s thing.
Yesterday I did that tutorial that’s circled around for a while on how to give glass that frosty sea glass effect. It’s super easy, and the tutorial I followed complicated it even further than it had to be. Here’s what you need:
A glass object- a bottle, mason jar, vase, etc
Mod Podge- they say that the matte finish one works best but mine is like, high gloss or something completely opposite and it worked out fine. I have a giant like industrial sized bottle so I wasn’t about to go out and get a new one for this project.
Paint and one of those spongy paintbrushes. I used a regular one though.
I got that little jar when they had a “lucky bamboo” event at my school. Don’t know why, but it was cute. There was a little lemonade stand kinda thing outside one of the buildings and we took a jar, these really cool, colorful water bead things that get bigger as they absorb more water, and then we just kinda stuck bamboo stalks in it. Pointless, but super cute and more importantly, free. Not actually lucky though, unfortunately. Then I let it sit in my room for five weeks over winter break, and it died. If that’s not an indication of how not green my thumb is, I’ve also killed a cactus. It literally needs zero things, and somehow I killed it.
That paper plate on the bottom of the picture is for mixing the paint and the Mod Podge, so I guess I should mention that you also need some kind of paint-mixing surface, whatever it may be. If you’re fancy and you have one of those palette things, use that because you can. I wish I could.
Ya know, one of these things. Also Bob Ross: gotta love that guy.
Anyway, here’s the process. Get a glob of mod podge on your fancy palette, or your pretend fancy palette. Then start mixing paint into it until you have your desired color. Keep in mind, it won’t look exactly the same when it’s done.
You can see that mine is sort of a periwinkle kinda color, but to me the finished product is way more purple than that. Weird, since I literally used only blue paint. Then, paint your jar!
The thing about this project that is both unbelievably irritating and also part of what makes it so great, is that this is completely washable. It came in handy when I realized that I did a horribly messy painting job. When it was dry, some of it looked great but some of it was a little bit streaky and/or sort of chunky like I put too much paint there. So, I held it under the sink and scraped it all off in like five seconds so I could start over. That’s great if you think you’re like me and you’ll do a shitty job, but it’s also kind of sucky if you want it to last a long time.
I have a confession, and it’s that I’ve tried this project before. I think that might be against my rules, but I make the rules so I declare this to be okay. I did it over the summer, and the results came out great. The colors were vibrant and pretty. I did a blue one, a green one and a yellow one. This is them now:
Soooo yeah. After a while, they start to fade. Especially these, since they’re always in my window which gets a lot of sun. You can barely tell the colors apart anymore, and you can see that the yellow one is chipping all over the place. So, this is a temporary project. It’s great for party decorations, or if you thought it was okay to paint your mom’s favorite vase and she has a panic attack, etc. It sucks if you’re looking for a permanent way to make your glass look like sea glass. Regardless, here’s the finished product, sitting on my windowsill being all cute:
It needs some flowers or something. Paper flowers. Made out of tissue paper that I have :O New project! Also, keep in mind that if I had used the right kind of brush, it wouldn’t be so streaky. Yours have the potential of looking way better if you have access to the right materials 🙂
Hope you enjoyed this! I thought making sea glass would be a nice way to escape the winter and start thinking about the beach. We’re in the home stretch for all of this cold weather!
~Nicole
Pinebriated 