Wedding Mercury Glass Jars

by Brightfield Farm

13K18010

Intro: Wedding Mercury Glass Jars

My daughter's vintage farm wedding at twilight required cheap, quick lighting for all the pastures, meadows, and woods. To keep the whimsical but ethereal feeling we scurried to make mercury glass canning jar lanterns. Who knew saving canning jars for a million years would come in handy?!?
This was a fun and surprisingly easy project  (we made 200 in a few days) with the added element of danger-transforming every glass object you own into mercurial glass.
Trust. Me.
The first step is the most difficult-finding the Krylon Looking Glass spray paint. Oh sure. It's in craft and hobby stores, however if you are like me you will be looking for the large spray paint can. Had I known it was a delicate smaller can I would have been finished a day earlier. Thus I have given you a can shot for scale.

10 Comments

dsantil71 9 years ago

So when not lit they look silverish like in the 5th picture but when lit they look like the 1st picture?

Brightfield Farm 12 years ago

OH!!! I see why they weren't real clear! You need to click on the boxs embedded in the photos. Yep, I am a dork! Sorry.

Brightfield Farm 12 years ago

It's such an easy technique, I can see why you missed them. Basically wash your clear glass item, dry it really well, LIGHTLY spray the inside with Looking Glass Paint (pic with a label is in the directions below the large photo) and be warned-the paint can is a smaller, skinnier can than regular spray paint so you could miss it on the shelf.
it only takes one VERY light coat-you just need to be patient and wait about mins for it to dry and then the effect appears.
If you wet a cloth with a LITTLE vinegar and dab that onto the paint in places you will see small sheets start to come off. You can also rub it off with oh say, the edge of a coin or something so you get a "worn" look.
If you use vinegar you have to rinse it off or it will continue to etch into the paint.
After the item is dray again, give it another LIGHT LIGHT coat.
It's pretty fun.
I apologize if the instructions were not clear to you.

justjimAZ 12 years ago

Very cool effect, and it looks fast and easy too.

alexa865 12 years ago

I wish we had a picture of just how beautiful this looked. They were tucked all through the garden and hung in trees in the lane and walking through them all when we were getting ready to leave the reception was one of the prettiest parts of the wedding.

l8nite 12 years ago

thats a cool effect !

Brightfield Farm 12 years ago

Thanks! It was a blast making them so quickly. They looked swell at night.