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!

Your supplies are pretty simple:

• 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.

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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!