Chippy Candlesticks

 I'm not fond of plain, clear glass in our house. It just doesn't "go". But I'm loving the look of all of the distressed and chippy looking mason jars that I've seen all over the web... 

Hmmmm... I have four plain glass candlesticks. 

And, as luck would have it, I just found two colors of "oops" paint from Home Depot, that I thought would look good in my dining room, so these candlesticks were going to be the perfect guinea pigs. 

First I washed the candlesticks an let them dry. To be sure they were good and clean, I also wiped them with a Clorox wipe, and let them dry again. Then they were ready for their makeover. 

                                     

If you decide to paint glass ~ a note about the paint. The paint I used was matte. I have read that you should avoid gloss or satin paint, and, honestly, I don't know why. I think the paint might peel off glass if it's not matte. Certainly, if you don't have "oops" paint, you could use acrylic from the crafts store. If you want the finished product to look glossy, you can always use a glossy sealer when you're done painting your candlesticks. (Or use a matte sealer if you like the matte look.)

When your candles are good and clean and dry ~ begin painting! It will take 3 coats of paint to get a good coverage. I used a foam brush, because I don't like worrying about the brush marks, and the foam avoids this on glass. Not to mention, if you have decorative cut glass, the foam brush is easy to smoosh into the cracks and crevaces too. 

To make things a little easier, I made sure to paint the bottoms of the candle sticks first, and let them dry before I turned them over the paint the remainder. 

After I was done painting the candlesticks, I let the paint dry for a loooong time. Drying the paint well is essential on glass. I let mine dry for several days, but you could get away with 24 hours. 

(After the paint was good and dry, my father happened to stop over, and asked what I was doing with the candlesticks. I told him I was about to distress them, and he said "but why would you want to upset them?" Yup. Hilarious.) 

Moving forward... I used steel wool to rub away some of the paint. You could certainly use a fine grain sand paper or even an emery board/nail file. There's no rhyme or reason to the distressing, I just sanded the raised areas until some of the glass was showing through. You can distress them a lot, or a little. 

I have to admit that at this point something went wrong with my brain my camera and I didn't remember to take any get any pictures of distressing the paint, and sanding with steel wool. Suffice it to say, just use the steel wool and lightly "sand" where you'd like to remove the paint. 

I'm not sure where I'm going to put the candlesticks yet.

Kitchen window...

Dining room...

Frankly, I'm getting quite a large collection of upcycled candlesticks and tea light holders. You know what that means? You're welcome Sis! (Passing on the goods.)

So what do you think? Would you make these?

HEY don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter! (Above) All the cool kids are! OK, well, my mom did... 

Also, if you would like to join in some fun link parties, click HERE