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DIY Mercury Glass Pumpkins

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I’m all about the easy (and cheap!) DIY project! Especially one that requires few supplies and few steps. My mom and I recently attempted to make our own mercury glass pumpkins, and they turned out great!

I love the idea of mercury glass decorations, but spending $25 (or more!) on a glass pumpkin that is going to sit on my table for a couple of months before going into storage the rest of the year, just wasn’t appealing. A DIY was in order!

easy diy mercury glass pumpkins

Your supplies are pretty simple:

DIY Mercury Glass Pumpkins supplies

  • glass pumpkin (this pumpkin with lid is from Walmart – $6)
  • Rust-Oleum Mirror Effect spray paint (found at Home Depot or Amazon)
  • Spray bottle with water
  • masking tape
  • old plastic sacks
  • paper towels/napkins

1. First, use the masking tape to tape your sacks to the glass lid and pumpkin protecting the outside.

DIY mercury glass pumpkins - covered in plastic bags

2. Using your spray bottle, spray water lightly over the inside of the lid. Immediately spray over the water with your spray paint (make sure you shake it up really well). You’ll still see the water droplets through the paint – this is good!

diy mercury glass pumpkin tutorial lid painted

3. Now take the same steps for the pumpkin. Spray water lightly inside and then spray lightly with spray paint to get desired coverage.

diy mercury glass pumpkins water

Don’t worry if you get a few large water droplets that roll around as you go, this just adds to the finished look! If you get too much water in one spot you can soak it up with the edge of a paper towel.

diy mercury glass pumpkin tutorial painting pumpkin

spraying diy mercury glass pumpkin

You can also turn it on its side to get it all covered.

diy mercury glass pumpkins (2)

4. Let it dry for an hour. If you want your pumpkins to be mirrored (and not so much like mercury glass), you can stop here. Let it dry and enjoy!

5. If you want the mercury glass look, first remove your plastic sacks from the outside. Then take a wet paper towel and gently rub the inside of your dried glass.

DIY mercury glass pumpkins wiping with towel

Keep rubbing gently until you get the splotchy translucent spots you want.

DIY mercury glass pumpkins inside

diy mercury glass pumpkins towel

Once you have your glass to your liking, let it dry another hour or so. If you’d like to seal the inside, use something like a matte clear spray paint.

diy mercury glass pumpkin lid inside

The inside of the finished lid.

diy mercury glass pumpkin inside

Finished inside of the pumpkin.

diy mercury glass pumpkin finished

DIY Mercury Glass Pumpkin finished photo

I’m in love with this! (And you can find that free fall printable here.) We were easily able to cover four glass pumpkins with one can of spray paint making our total for the project about $30, a fraction of what you would pay for mercury glass pumpkins from a store!

Originally published October 14, 2015

Love this DIY? Check out how easy it is to spruce up your fall decor using spray paint!

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Jennifer Dunham

Friday 30th of September 2016

These are so neat and look great! I will definitely be adding to my weekend project list!

Jamie

Sunday 16th of October 2016

They were a fun project!

Kate Walton

Friday 30th of September 2016

I absolutely love this! And I have one of those pumpkin bowls so it looks like it will be getting a bit of a makeover! Would you share this with us at 100 Happy Days Link Party? http://www.akreativewhim.com/link-party-43/

Becki Svare

Friday 30th of September 2016

How clever! I love how that turned out! What a fun, easy craft.

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