Gold Painted String Lights

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Georgina

Gold Painted String Lights

So remember that time I told you I had become obsessed with gold spray paint? Well….. I wasn’t kidding.

It pretty much all started because of the wedding. Our colors were green and gold and there were some items (like these) that I liked but wanted to have them be gold.

Enter liquid gold.

Then things got pretty serious and I was spray painting anything I could get my hands on. Napkin rings, rocks, vases,string lights…you name it!

I think I just saw an idea like this on Pinterest and decided I wanted to have some of the lights gold for my wedding. My mom found these knock off “cafe” lights on clearance the day after Christmas and snatched them up for me. I only did three strings of them but they turned out great for the wedding and I am also planning and looking forward to using these around the holidays! I’m a traditional green and gold type of girl so these will look amaze-balls around the house for Christmas!All you need is:

Spray Paint (this is my favorite gold)
Painters tape (or any tape I guess)
String lights
an open area to spray paint and cardboard boxes or something like this to paint in/over.
This amazing tool (ok. you don’t NEED this but it will make it 100% easier and you get a really even coat)

Then you just:

Tape up the areas you DON’T want paint on . My bulbs unscrewed so I just took them all off and put a tiny piece of tape over the LED light and also taped the ends as shown below.

Make sure you’re in well ventilated area and following these rules.

Then just go to town! I did two full coats and then some touchups on some weird spots. It’s a little hard to not have fingerprints when you do the whole thing at once as you have to pick it up and move it and twist it and turn it. But the final 3rd spray down for just those spots will leave you with perfectly even paint.

So there you go! Beautiful makeover to make something cheap look fancy and sophisticated. Someone please remember to remind me to take a picture of these around my house at Christmas 🙂

Thank you so much for checking in! Hope you all have fabulous weekends.

xoxo

Napkin Rings {Makeover}

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Georgina

Napkin Rings {Makeover}

Sooo last week’s post talked about how I went a little spray paint crazy. It all started by wanting to try to paint some string lights gold (for the wedding) call me crazy but I thought it would look awesome (it does). But to see those, you’ll have to tune in next week! 🙂 After spraying the lights and seeing how beautiful the gold paint went on and how glam it looked, I started rummaging around the house for other items to paint. Enter these napkin rings. Now you’re probably thinking “why do you have napkin rings” (I don’t know either) “do you really use napkin rings?” (like one time ever) – BUT they were my grandmas and while going through her stuff after she passed away, I came across these and thought they were rustic and cute and ~~when~~ if I have a dinner party then I’d use them. Then I thought I’d glam them up a little bit, also my heart wouldn’t break if the grand idea didn’t work out anyway. So I taped them up: Both the inside and outside. I couldn’t decide on a pattern so I thought it would look cute if I did a variety. It was a little difficult to adequately tape the inside because it’s a circle and it kept trying to lift in certain places but it ended up working pretty good. I used a Qtip in rubbing alcohol to clean up some minor “leaks” in the tape and surprisingly that worked really good. There are 7 rings total (used to be 8 but I broke one by shutting a drawer a little aggressively one day) so I ended up doing 3 that I taped two spots like this: And then two of 4 spots like this: And two of 5 spots: Honestly the one top one is my favorite (the two spots ones) and I half wish I would have done them all like that, but I also like the ones split in 4, the 5 is not my favorite. BUT I do like variety so I’m fine with it. For other tips and tricks on spray painting see HERE. So what do you think?!? Cute? Lame? I’d love your thoughts! I’ll just be sitting over here waiting to use these babies for all my non existent dinner parties 🙂 HAPPY FRIDAY! Thanks for reading and checking out the blog. Have a great weekend!

xoxo

New Spray Paint Obsession

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Georgina

Spray Paint Obsession

Happy Sunday! A few weekends ago I went a little spray paint crazy and was basically painted anything in my house that wasn’t tied down.

It’s because I found the magic that is………. GOLD SPRAY PAINT.

It’s for lack of a better term, liquid gold, literally.

It started because I had a few things that I was test spray painting for my wedding and it was sooooooo amazing that I started painting other things too. Like lots of random things.

Which I’m going to share with you bit by bit here on the blog but first as this was my first time using and crafting with pray paint, I thought I would go over a couple basics.

First things first- which spray paint should I use?

First of all I was primarily interested in GOLD spray paint. So I did some research on this and relied heavily on other bloggers testing out of spray paints brands to get the best “true gold” look.

Here, Here, and Here are my trusty sources- see for yourself!

So I purchased the Rustoleum Metallic Gold paint as well as the little sprayer nozzle thing. It’s worked great (HIGHLY RECOMMEND) it just was easier to handle and I felt made things go on smoother.

I also made this highly complex and state of the art spraying “station” out of old shoe boxes (I have a small shoe obsession) as seen here:

*Sarcasm*

I was so desperate to paint I literally THREW this together. It worked great though!

Yes that is snow on the ground and no it’s not recommended to spray paint in very cold temperatures but believe it or not this day got up to like 40 degrees and lets face it I might not see those temps for a few more months so I had to jump at the opportunity!

Everything worked out just how I wanted. But I did learn a few things.

– With all the fumes that are just a part of spray paint, make sure you do it outside or in a HIGHLY ventilated area (like garage with the door open at a minimum) and also make sure to ware a mask or pant ventilator. For your own health, you don’t want to inhale that stufff.
– Make sure it’s not windy! Paint particles all over everything in your painting area is not probably how you want it to go and that WILL happen if it’s windy. Also you really shouldn’t spray paint below 50 (I did 4o) degree weather apparently this is because it makes it hard for the paint to properly bond and dry on the item(s)
– You don’t need a primer, most likely. Unless you are doing a super high glossy item or furniture with lots of nooks and crannies. I didn’t use primer for any of my items and they turned out great.
– A few thinner coats of paint are better than 1 or 2 THICK ones. Trust me.
– Prep your area that you’ll be painting in (see pic above 🙂 ) and also make sure to test the paint before you start too. Just a test spray on your prep surface or piece of “junk” will do. You just want to make sure everything is working properly.
– SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE (it off- sorry couldn’t resist) that can. SHAKE the hell out of it before you start (I’m talking 2-3 minutes of good shake time) and then shake frequently throughout your project particularly if you take some breaks to rotate or move your item. It will make a world of difference

So now you have all the info you need to be able to do your own fun and gorgeous spray painting crafts and projects! I did soooo many cute things with this paint….. but I’m going to make you wait a little longer to see what they all were 🙂

Check back soon to see how we painted some vases, some string lights, and some napkin rings!

Do YOU have any other tips or tricks to share? I’d love to hear them!

xoxoxo