DIY Mercury Glass Christmas Orb

Raise your hand if you have fun scavenging for odd bits and bobs that you can repurpose them into something amazing!

My hand is waaayyy up there.

I love to shop barn sales, yard sale and vintage markets for fun interesting pieces with potential.

When I was out shopping at the Spring 2020 Vintage Shop Hoo, right before the pandemic hit.

I found this crate full of glass globes.

They were from old light fixtures.

But…they kinda look like giant Christmas ornaments, don’t they?

For me, Christmas ornaments need to be shiny, sparkly, and twinkly.

I am thinking mercury glass and fairy lights.

Are you ready?

These lighted Christmas orbs, or ornaments, are so easy to make.

Here’s what you need to make yours:

Glass Globes from old light fixtures
Rustoleum Mirror Finish Spray Paint
Battery Operated Fairy Lights [don’t forget the batteries!]
Footed base
Spray Bottle
Vinegar

Mercury Glass is created by misting vinegar on glass and spraying with mirror finish spray paint. Mirror finish comes in several colors, for this project I used gold mirror finish and silver mirror finish.

gold metallic spray paint krylon rust-oleum

Since I have several glass globes, I felt the need to make a couple Christmas orbs, or ornaments. I am still not sure which sounds better.

Ornaments or orbs?

Back to our project.
Lets start outside, when using spray paint, outside is always best.

Start by adding a bit of vinegar to a spray bottle and spritz the inside of your glass globe.

Then spray a couple of quick bursts of the mirror finish paint inside the glass globe.

Your goal is light even coverage.

For the gold globe, I actually sprayed the gold mirror finish.

Once it is fully dry, I spritzed the vinegar again and then sprayed the with the silver mirror glass spray paint.

Just a couple bursts for double the shush.

Oh, and there was this groovy glass globe hiding in the crate with all the globes.

I just spritzed this one with vinegar and the silver mirror finish spray paint.

I wanted the two globes to be different.

The vinegar prevents the mirror glass paint from sticking, creating a mercury glass effect.

It creates all these beautiful imperfect spaces for the fairy lights to peek thru.

There is perfection in imperfection, one of the reasons that I love mercury glass so much.

While your globes are drying, check the batteries in your fairy lights.
I keep my batteries together in a safe place.

Now I don`t always remember where that safe place is, so I end up buying another pack of batteries from Amazon.

I have my fresh batteries, so the fairy lights twinkle properly.
Time to check the orbs to make sure they are dry.

Let`s get these beauties finished up.

For the first orb, I fished the fairy lights thru a disassembled base of an old light fixture.

Feed the strand of fairy lights thru to the top.

Then tuck the fairy lights in your orb, or ornament.
Have we decided what to call it, yet?
Christmas Orb or Christmas ornament…I am still on the fence.

lights inside mercury glass christmas orb

Then secure the glass globe to the base.

I like to use a base where I can hide the battery pack.

A bit of double sided tape holds it on the underside so you can still access it and turn it off and on.

These fairy lights have an auto shut off.

They will reaming on for a hours, shut off automatically and then turn back on at the same time the next day.

I LOVE that it is so easy to set it once and leave it be. Well until I need to change the batteries.

This vintage milk glass vase fit perfectly fit the light base.

How gorgeous is this?

I was playing around with options to make it even easier.

When looking for a base, I like to use something footed to give it height.

You can forgo the fancy base that I used on the first globe and just tuck the lights and the battery pack in the globe.

Then place on top of your base.

This other milk glass base looks so loverly with the gold orb sitting on top.

I found a vintage silver goblet to go with my silver groovy globe.

I just adore them atop my mantle for Christmas.

You will never guess what the little wood trees in the background are made from.
You can find the DIY over here.

As for the orbs, I set the fairy lights to twinkle.

Sooo Christmasy.