DIY fantastic: gold votive candles

Things have been a little slow on the blog here for a while and many apologies for this. What with planning and preparing for our wedding and buying a house things have been ever so slightly hectic round these parts! But, on the plus side, we have been experimenting and trialling out all sorts of different diys in preparation for the wedding so I have plenty of things to share with you!

First off we have our gold votive candles. I have been really enamoured with some of the mercury glass diys Ive spotted online, including here and here. We had a shot at something similar, but with a rose gold colour. The effect is actually quite different, as you can see below, but equally beautiful and interesting. I love the textures, the variations and the uniqueness of each candle in this experiment! :)

What we used:

Candles, ours were from Asda, but any candles in a glass holder would work. You could even do a similar project with empty glasses and simply add tea-light for the same effect. Bonus!

I found a fantastic comparison of different gold spray paints here. These guys REALLY know their golds from their golds! But in all honesty, this is super handy when you're trying to decide on one yourself!

Another thing to share - Krylon mirror spray is apparently the key component for mercurised mirror effects. But it is notoriously difficult to get hold of in the UK! I have identified a source over here and to be honest it's not exactly cheap, but hopefully the effects will be worthwhile. Anyhow, I have some more experimenting to do before I blog my progress updates!

Right, where were we?! Back to the steps:

1. First off, as always with spray paints etc. make sure you're working in a well ventilated area, outside ideally, or at least near an open window. Plus, put down a decent layer of newspaper if you're crafting in a room you care about!

2. Once you're all set, get spraying! We starting with the vinegar solution - a few squirts of this, just enough to start creating little droplets, but not quite enough that the droplets run into each other and trickle off the glass altogether. Then spray on the metallic paint in a thin even coat.

3. Wait for it to dry, we waited a good few minutes between sprays. Then repeat the two steps with the vinegar and then the spray paint until you get the level of cover and the dappled effect you desire! You can use a damp cloth (or kitchen roll - classy!) to dab away the vinegar in between sprays. This means that each layer has a different pattern that build up to create a unique effect.

We also mixed it up and experimented with different effects - for example clear polkadots. We did this by cutting out circles from washi tape that we removed once all the gold paint was dry to reveal clear spots all the way round! You can go crazy with patterns and shapes on this one!

I love how the texture is visible as the light shines through. This is where you can really see the character of them, the unique effects created with the vinegar spray, all the quirks and inconsistencies! So when things appear to go slightly wrong at the beginning of this process you can think of it as a blessing rather than a curse - it's these that create the beauty.