Faux Mercury Glass Ornament with Vinyl Snowflakes

Every year for the past few years I have taken place in an ornament crafting exchange and it's one of my favorite craft projects of the year!  This year I was paired up with Vicki from Two Bees in a Pod. As soon as I saw a picture of her beautiful blue and white tree in her family room with the touches of silver I just knew I wanted to make something for that tree.  

I set about making my own faux murcury glass ornamants.  I read a few different tutorials on how to do this and then tried out my own technique.  Using clear plastic ornaments, some looking glass spray paint and a small water bottled filled with approximately half water and half vinegar I went to work.

First I sprayed a few squirts of the paint into the ornament and shook it up to make sure I had good coverage.  Then I added a few squirts of the water/vinegar mixture and kept swirling the paint and water around for a few minutes.  (As you can see I plugged the hole with paper towels to protect my hand).

I used my hair dryer to speed up the paint drying process and each ornament needed a good 3-4 coats of paint intermixed with the water.  I just kept layering the paint until I had an effect I liked.

They are super hard to take photos of because the looking glass paint makes them all shiny like a mirror but if I back light them you'll see that there are darker and lighter specks like mercury glass.

Once I had the background of my ornaments to my liking I pulled out my computer, Cricut, and some sticky backed vinyl in a nice deep blue.  I cut out 4 different snowflake designs and put one on each ornament.

I made all 4 ornaments in one morning and I just loved how they turned out.  I packaged them up and sent them on their way... hoping Vicki would love them too.

Make sure you pop over to the Ornament Exchange Party and see all the ornaments that the 38 talented bloggers joining us made!  There are some pretty amazing tutorials linked up with us that you won't want to miss.