Favourite Time of the Year

Don't you just love this time of the year? The sun is shining, birds are chirping, peonies are in full bloom… ahhhhh… I just love it.

I realize that it's been a while since I've posted, but honestly, you know how it is. Life is busy. I haven't done a lot of blog worthy things, besides enjoying life with my family. :) I have, however, just completed a project that I wanted to share with you.

I saw this really cool Gold Leaf painted globe on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try. I was lucky cause this whole project only cost me $3.50.

Luckily, my parents had an old globe lying around that I could have. It was so old that there were a few countries that weren't correct, so I didn't mind painting over it.

I used black acrylic paint I had on hand and started to paint in the oceans. And no, I didn't prime it first (!). I tried to be as kind as I could to the little islands, I made sure not to paint over little places I have been, like Hawaii and Antigua and Barbuda. However, anything East of Australia was gone-zo. Sorry guys. 

I'm a little bit of a perfectionist, so it took me almost 2 hours to paint the entire thing.

Next up… I attempted to apply the gold leaf. Notice the underline? Yea… it didn't work out so well.

This little part of North America took FOREVER and it was quite frustrating. I could not get the gold leaf to stay on the edges well, and sometimes chunks in the middle of the gold leaf would fall off. And the flakes went everywhere! Luckily I was prepared and had laid scrap paper down to cover the area.

I was a little disheartened at this point. I didn't think I could keep going and still be happy with the finished product, so I headed back to Michaels to see if perhaps there was better quality gold leaf and adhesive I could buy.

That's when I found this little beauty.

And it was on sale for $2.99. Holla!! For that price, I thought it was worth a shot.
**Update - I can no longer find Liquid Leaf at Michaels, but Amazon sells it for $9.89, which is still a decent price because this stuff goes far!!

 This was my test:

It went on so smoothly and quickly. It was a pretty powerful smell, so I opened the windows, and boom! In a couple hours, I was done!

Now I know that I probably should have primed the globe and sealed it afterwards, but I didn't, and I still think it looks great. Ok sure, it might not last forever, but that's ok! 

Now I just need to figure out what to do with the axis thingy. Paint it? Leave it? What do you think?