DIY Colored Mercury Glass

Mercury glass votives are a HUGE trend in weddings right now. Whether they are all one style or mismatched and unique, they continue to grace reception decor of all styles. I just love this look!!

Mercury glass can appear glamorous and high end, but at the same time they can be fun and boho! You can create a look of elegance with one color and style, or you can play up the vintage vibes by mismatching various colors, textures and styles. (my fav!)

Best of all, they do a great job disguising a cheap, Walmart LED tea light, …because we know that ain’t cute.

The only downfall… buying mercury glass votives can be SO expensive.

The cheapest I found was to pay $20-30 for 12 mercury glass holders. That’s averaging $2 a piece! Considering each table will have at least 5 mini candles, that’s $10 a table just for the little candle holders. I had 10 guest tables at my wedding, meaning I would have spent $100 just to put a few mini candle holders on each table… That doesn’t even put into consideration adding a few medium sized votives to create the mismatched look that I really wanted.

Maybe that is affordable to some, but it was definitely not practical for me.

On the other hand, I wasn’t ready to give up having the mismatched, boho look that I fell in love with! I knew there had to be an easy DIY project out there! At least that is what I thought…

I tried a few tutorials and ended up ruining a few jars. Colored metallic spray paint DOES NOT create a mercury finish. You HAVE to get actual Looking Glass paint! However, it only comes in silver and I really wanted color! I didn’t want to spend even more money on glass staining paint, because that defeats the whole purpose on my money saving DIY. Plus, it wasn’t even guaranteed to work!

It was time to get desperately creative.

I came up with the idea to use food coloring mixed with Mod Podge on top of the looking glass paint after using the same mixture to paint porcelain tiles a few months prior. Luckily, my little experiment turned out great!

They turned out better than I imagined! I re-used mini yogurt jars that I already had, purchased cheap jam jars and even found even more affordable thrift store glasses! I probably spent a total of $26 on glasses and materials that I didn’t already have!

So, if you are looking for a way to not pay hundreds on mercury glass, look no further! This was so easy and affordable, that you could have kids help with it! (I’d have an adult use the looking glass spray paint.)

I hope you enjoy! 🙂

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DIY Colored Mercury Glass

Materials:

Quilted Jars – (I also used Yoplait’s Oui Yogurt glass jars & thrift store glasses)
Looking Glass Paint – I used the daily 40% off coupon on this!
Mod Podge – I used the gloss finish
Food Coloring – I am unsure if brand matters, but this was the exact brand I used! I used the food coloring to make the vivid blue and copper colors.
Acrylic Paint (Metallics) – I used “Pewter” for the pale blue shimmer shade and “Rose Gold” for the pale rose shimmer shade.
Water – I used tap!
Vinegar – I used generic, white distilled vinegar
Spray Bottles – 1 for the vinegar. 1 for the water.
Paint Brushes

Preparation:

Soak all glass votives in warm soapy water for 10-20 minutes. This makes it so much easier to remove labels and price tags! (No matter how long I soaked my oui yogurt glasses in soapy water, they still had a little sticky residue from the label. They still turned out fine!)

Lay all glass votives to air dry.

Step One:

Lightly Spray or blot the inside of the jar with water enough to show little tiny droplets. This helps the Looking Glass paint run a little easier.

Step Two:

Spray 2-3 mists of Looking Glass paint inside of the jar. The paint should be super thin and runny! Tilt, swirl and move jar around so the paint distributes all over the inside of the glass. The glass walls do not have to be even or completely saturated. (The additional colors will fill in all the blank areas)

Important Note: Since I used LED tea lights for my wedding, I applied everything to the inside of the glass. Mod Podge is not flammable when dried, but I would apply everything to the outside of the glass just to be 100% safe when using real candles. You will have to lightly mist the Looking Glass paint around the outside of glass instead of swirling it around.

Step Three:

Wait about 10-20 seconds for the looking glass paint to set. Spray inside of glass with vinegar to eat away some of the paint. The more vinegar you spray, the more speckled and distressed your mirror finish will look.

Repeat steps 1-3 until all of your glass votives are ready for color!

Important Note: Let this dry completely before adding any color!

Step Four:

Add two Tablespoons of Mod Podge to a small cup or bowl. Mix in desired color of food coloring or acrylic metallic paint.

The food coloring was all about trial and error, but I rarely ended up with a color I did not like.

For the teal shade, I did 4 drops of green and 3 drops of blue.

Not going to lie, the copper was never quite the same each time I made it. However, I always started with 4 drops of yellow, 2 red and 2 blue and added more drops of whatever color I felt it needed.

For the pale rose and blue shades, I mixed about a teaspoon of pewter or rose gold acrylic paint with two Tablespoons of Mod Podge. I sometimes added a bit more acrylic paint if the color was too sheer. (I tried using the acrylic paints on the glass without the Mod Podge, but it did not apply as easy and did not dry as thin and sheer.)

Step Five:

Once the Mod Podge & food coloring (or acrylics) are thoroughly mixed, apply a thin layer of the mixture to the inside of the glass. Let it dry for about 30 seconds before applying more coats.

Don’t worry about the coats looking even or perfect. I was a bit sloppy and they all turned out fine!

Important Note: I did not try this project with solid, non-metallic acrylic paints. However, my guess is that solid acrylic paints wouldn’t dry as clear as the food coloring mixture does.

Finished Project!

I made teal, pale blue, pale rose gold and copper mercury glass votives for my outdoor wedding reception. They dazzled beautifully in the sun and looked stunning at night with the LED candles! (my venue had a no candle burning policy)

We got tons of sweet compliments on these! Some of our wedding guests even thought we purchased these! (as if I had hundreds of dollars to spend at Anthropologie… I wish!)

Best of all, I ended up keeping my favorites to use as little votives around the house. 🙂

Here is an up close look on the teal, pale rose gold and copper mercury glass. It’s hard to tell by the photo, but the silver swirls are the looking glass paint! This paint is suuuper metallic and looks amazing with the colors.

I can’t get over how easy and CHEAP these were to make! They were the perfect addition to my eclectic, boho-desert wedding centerpieces!

They would make great gifts, centerpiece votives, wedding favors home decor and school art projects! I bet you could even make multi-colored, aurora borealis inspired glass!

I hope you found this tutorial helpful 🙂