Faux Mercury Glass Tutorial

I love mercury glass. I love all the different colors it comes in, I love the spotty texture that looks so modern and yet so antique all at the same time, I love everything about it but the price. Mercury glass starts popping up this time of year and lasts through the holidays, and it always costs more than I want to pay. But it’s so beautiful and shiny, and looks so great with holiday displays, that I’m left pining after it. This year I decided to make my own version of mercury glass using glass paint and a glass thrift store urn.

To begin I used the Martha Stewart spray kit to give a coat of translucent silver glitter to the entire inside of the urn. Brush strokes will give this technique away, and if you’re working with an odd shaped vessel like this, you might not be able to get in every nook and cranny like the spray paint can. This will make sure everything gets covered and that nothing just looks like naked glass.

Scrunch up a shop rag to get as much texture as you can, and dunk it in bright silver glass paint. You want a pretty heavy application, so don’t be afraid to get goopy.

Pounce the paint on with a rag, letting the paint go on heavy.

Keep pouncing until you get silver all over the inside of your vessel. You don’t want to cover every inch. The effect you’re going for is blotchy. You want to leave plenty of glass poking through to get that mottled look of mercury glass.

Next you’ll need a contrast color. I wanted something close to black, but not so dark that it didn’t fit with my silver color, so I mixed together a metallic black and a glittery silver. I don’t want to use any colors that look too flat. For everything to fit together it should all have a bit of shimmer.

Pounce on with a rag as before, but this time use a little lighter hand. A little contrast goes a long way.

Then just let it dry and marvel at what you made. I want to paint everything like this now. It’s a great way of rescuing neglected thrift store pieces with fantastic shapes and turning them into something special. What started as a boring glass urn is now a vase that will get a special place in all of my holiday decorating.

Disclaimer: I used Martha Stewart glass paints that I got for free from a past sponsored post, but nobody paid me anything to make this tutorial up. Martha Stewart glass paints are just the best.

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