sea glass

Many times I see a project on Facebook or Pinterest and click through only to find there are no instructions provided, or very general ones. One of my non-crafty friends sent me a photo of glass candlesticks painted to look like sea glass and asked if I could help her make them. The instructions only said “mix Elmer’s glue with food coloring and paint on glass”. When I started Googling, there were many blogs that had the photo, but they all pretty much said the same thing: they had seen the photo but could not find the original post with instructions.

They had all tried their own versions of creating this magical paint with varying success. The two I saw most frequently used either straight glue, or glue mixed with a little bit of water to thin it out.  I decided to try it both ways and pulled out a few jelly jars to experiment.

The jar on the left was using just glue. I used about 2 tablespoons of glue, 3 drops of blue food coloring and 2 drops of green. Painting with a foam brush, I found it difficult to get a thin coat, but some of the tutorials said that you don’t have to worry about streaks, they disappear when the glue dries. They did not.

For the jar on the right, I added some water to the mix. This was much easier to paint on, and did have less streakiness when it dried, but it did not disappear completely. It is closer though, and gives me hope that eventually I’ll find the right mix to create the look.

Advertisement