How to Make Mercury Glass {Easy DIY}

Here is a really simple DIY project you might want to try to jazz up your home a bit with some sparkle.

Do you love the look of Mercury Glass?  I do!  But Mercury Glass can be a little spendy plus you might not always be able to find exactly the right piece to suit your needs.

So it is extremely easy to make your own Mercury Glass objects at home with just plain glass and spray paint.

The only thing you need is a can of Looking Glass spray paint from Krylon.  This can be found at some craft stores, home improvement stores, online from Amazon here, or at Walmart.   It can be a little tricky to find so I suggest calling ahead to ask.  I found it at Walmart and it was a little pricey at $9 per can.

This is a smaller size can too, mine was 6oz.

Once you have it though you can use it for numerous projects so I thought it was worth it to buy.   You can pick up any cheap glass vases, candlesticks, lamp bases, mason jars… whatever you want to have a pretty silver sparkle.  (This vase was $3.50 with a coupon at Joann’s.  You can find them cheaper at Thrift Stores or Dollar Stores.)

There are a few steps to using this paint and I do want to warn you it smells really strong- like nail polish.

1. You are supposed to spray the inside of the object not the outside.  I found this a little tricky with smaller things like holiday ornaments so you can see the difference between spraying inside and outside in my photos.

2. Make sure to shake your can well- 2 minutes- before the first use.  The directions on the can are really important to read so you get the right finish on your glass.

3.  If you just want a very shiny mirror look you don’t need anything else.  If you want that somewhat aged look of mercury glass, you can grab a plain spray bottle and some paper towels.  Once you spray your coat of paint onto your glass, use the spray bottle to spritz a very fine mist of spray.  That will give your glass the sort of bubbled look.  You can also use the paper towels to dab away at any extra water on the inside or excess paint.  I actually just rolled the vase around to distribute the extra paint evenly on the inside.

4. Be very careful that you rest your object in such a way that you won’t get drips of paint.  The drips look really bad- I tried painting a mason jar on the side and learned my lesson with some ugly drip lines.

5. This is a really thin paint so you might need several coats.  It is best to get really close to the glass and just do quick short bursts of paint and then swirl your object around to distribute the paint evenly.  It does dry very quickly and it will look dull until the coat dries.

The mason jar below is pictured after two coats of paint.  So you can see you really need to have patience with this project to get the best results.

6. If you prefer larger chips on your Mercury glass, you can add equal parts of vinegar and water to a spray bottle after your last coat dries.  Spritz lightly and the vinegar will allow you to chip away a bit of the paint just a tiny bit.  That gives larger pieces of damage then just the fine spritz of water I mentioned above.

The vase on the left is the one I did.  Mine has a very fine mist of water so it left very subtle discoloration on the vase.  The one on the left is real Mercury Glass from Z’Gallerie.  You can achieve that look with the larger pieces chipped off by using the vinegar solution I mentioned above.

7. One last tip.  If you want to use your painted object to hold water- just insert a second jar inside to hold the water and the flowers.  In my case, I filled a mason jar with water and slid that right inside the vase.

So here is an ornament that I used the paint on the outside.  Again you are supposed to spray the inside of the object but the hole is so small I couldn’t spray properly.  The outside still gives you a great mirror finish (and I can prove it with the 200 pictures I tried to take without my image being reflected!)

Here is another look:

I did one fine spritz of water on these because I wanted them a little more shiny and not as vintage looking.  You can see they are very reflective.

So that’s it!! A fun and easy project to do yourself at home.  Once you have the paint you can go crazy so it really is an affordable project.  Real Mercury Glass ornaments for the holidays cost a fortune but you can do tons of them yourself with just one can of paint.

And you can see tons more ideas for easy DIY projects on my pinterest board.