Last weekend I posted on Facebook that I’d had a pumpkin project failure and everyone said they wanted to see what it was. So here it is, my great idea turned FAILURE!
When I got this Pottery Barn magazine I loved the pumpkin on the front cover. Of course I didn’t want to spend a small fortune to buy it so I decided I’d try to re-create it.
For this project I used a silver and gold pumpkin because I thought those colors would look good under the shiny glass-looking finish.
First I cut out vinyl vine shapes with my Silhouette and then evenly placed them all around the pumpkins.
After putting the vines on the pumpkin I sprayed the pumpkins with looking glass spray paint from Krylon.
Hmmm… not really the look I was going for. I thought it was supposed to be shiny…???
And then I really freaked when my vinyl started deteriorating from the spray paint! NOT good!
Oooo, really not good.
After spray painting the pumpkins I had to walk away and let them be. They were making me crazy but I thought maybe if I walked away they would magically turn out better after they dried {one can hope, right?}.
I have to be honest, if the looking glass spray paint had looked shiny on these plastic pumpkins, I actually think they would look pretty cool.
Oh and if the cheap pumpkin hadn’t started falling apart, that would have been nice too!
The other pumpkin wasn’t quite as bad, it didn’t fall apart, but it had problems of it’s own! In a couple spots the spray paint was a little runny and created these streaks. Bummer.
I don’t think this pumpkin was a complete failure, like the other one, but it definitely wasn’t the look I was going for. The looking glass spray paint is awesome when it’s prayed on glass, but I was bummed that it turned out so flat when I sprayed it on plastic.
So that’s my pumpkin project failure. I saved the larger pumpkin, I just have it turned so you can see the streaks, but the little one got tossed in the trash. I just wish there was a way to recreate that beautiful Pottery Barn pumpkin! Do you have any ideas for me, I’d love to hear them!!!
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I have absolutely no idea how to “fix” this, but I am glad you shared it! For one thing, because I have wanted to try the looking glass spray on things (other than you know, glass) and it’s good to know it might not work! And second, because I am glad to know I am not alone in this ‘craft fail’ business hahaha :)
Haha, thank Leighann. :)
From what I’ve seen, that spray paint isn’t meant to turn any surface into a mirror – it only works if you spray it on the back of glass. So for those pumpkins, you’d have to find some glass pumpkins and somehow get the spray inside them. Someone has done something similar here: http://www.atobeingcreations.com/2011/11/faux-mercury-glass-tutorial.html
To fix the pumpkins you already have, you could try using metallic acrylic paints to do an effect similar to http://www.reesedixon.com/2012/10/faux-mercury-glass-tutorial.html – except because you’re working on the outside of the object, I would start with a darker colour an make sure it really gets into the nooks and crannies, then go progressively lighter with more focus on the parts of the pumpkin that would naturally see more light. Then maybe go over the whole thing with a high gloss finish? Just an idea, but they’re your pumpkins. ;)
On the plus side my 10 year old son said…wow how did she do that….its cool =)
That’s awesome, and sweet. Tell him thank you. :)
This just showed up in my feed:
http://www.justalittlecreativity.com/2012/10/how-to-paint-mercury-glass-pumpkins.html
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Awesome, thank you! :)