Knock-Off French Candlesticks

***Join me over at my new blog:  Life a la Mode***

So I keep telling myself I'm going to start blogging but I never quite do. It seems strange to talk to the air. But I am going to be doing some more DIY stuff and I want to have a place to get all excited about it, even if nobody reads it. I figure I can share on linky parties (if I can ever figure out exactly what and how to do that) so that other DIY geeks awesome people can see my creations and possibly help me improve my efforts. And maybe as a newbie to DIY, I can help others not make the same mistakes I know I will.

So let's get down to it.

I was pinning one night (this is kinda what I look like when I'm on Pinterest, especially Sunday nights)



and I came across this candlestick. AWESOME. And then I saw the price. $225. What am I, a Kardashian? $225? Seriously?

http://www.bellemaisonfrancaise.com/antiqued-hand-carved-white-wood-french-candlestick.html

So I kept an eye out for some candlesticks I could make fabulous. And I found three. One from a thrift shop and two from my trusty Homegoods. $35.98 for candlesticks? CHECK. So far so good on my DIY quest. I must admit thus far I was feeling preeettty proud of myself. But as it's said, pride comes before a fall because I promptly committed the cardinal sin of DIY blogging. I forgot to take a "before" picture. This is made doubly bad by the fact that my side job is as a photographer and I have a rather nice camera laying about. At all times. I mean the thing is a tripping hazard. And I forgot. Shame, shame, shame. Good thing nobody is reading this anyway :-).

So I trekked back to Homegoods and found another candle with the same finish. It's awful, snapped by my phone, but you get the point: orange-y, green-y brown. Not the look I was going for.



Ok, back to the DIY'ing. The first step was to prime them with Zinsser spray primer. Then I sprayed them liberally with Rustoleum's Heirloom White, you know a la Centsational Girl. I wanna be her when I grow up.



Then I took Valspar's Antiquing Glaze

and gave two of them some light antiquing. I brushed it on with a foam brush and wiped down with a rag. I had 2 rags available - a dry one and a damp one so that I could remove as much or as little as I wanted. I also had some q-tips at the ready for the nooks and crannies. This was my first go using a glaze. It was really easy to do and I found myself wanting a less is more approach and using the damp cloth more so than the dry cloth. One thing I did notice is that you want to finish a whole section before the glaze dries otherwise you can end up with a start/stop line or section. I managed to fix mine my using some sand paper and then glazing again, but it was a pain. Next time I'll snap a photo of my mishap. I'm sure I'll have more. :-)

On the 3rd guy, this one here:


I gave this one a little dry brush of a brown acrylic paint I had on hand (I used burnt umber). Just a little here and there. Dry brushing is super easy, just lightly dip the brush in the paint and then tap or stipple the brush onto a paper towel to remove the excess and make the brush mostly dry. Then with a light hand wisp the brush on the item. After the dry brush, I used the antiquing glaze with the same apply and wipe off method as the other two. The wiping did remove some of the acrylic dry brush but it acutally served to enhance the dry brush technique. It was a happy accident!

I'm super pleased with the results:


Pin It



Pin It



Pin It



Pin It


So let's tally that, shall we?
$36 for the candlesticks
$10 for the bottle of glaze, of which I used about 3-4 tablespoons
$5 for the Zinsser primer
$4 for the Heirloom White spray paint.

Why that's $55. I got THREE candlesticks for 24% of what ONE candlestick from Belle Maison Francaise would have cost me. And it only took me a couple of hours of hands on time!