I don't think I share enough of my project fails with you. Not that I have a ton of them, but when they do occur, I'm usually discouraged and it hardly seems worth the effort to put together a post about it.
But I don't want to give off the impression that everything happens without incident around here, so here's my latest fail.
When we remodeled our bathroom, I chose these vintage-style sconces. They were from Lowe's and budget-priced at $30 each (although I don't think they sell them anymore). But I still find myself lusting after fancier, pricier painted shade sconces such as those at Schoolhouse Electric.
I even considered purchasing replacement shades for the existing sconces just to give them a bit more style, but who knows if they would actually fit in the fixtures correctly. Plus even that option would have me spending an unnecessary $70+.
And then I had a giant "duh" moment: I could just paint the shades I already had!
After removing the shades and washing them in some soapy water, I cleaned them with rubbing alcohol (per the instructions on the bottle of craft paint).
Then I taped off my first stripe. It took a while because I was trying to match the decorative edges in the shade.
After burnishing the edges of the tape down, I painted the exposed area with three thin coats of glossy craft paint.
When the paint was dry, I peeled off the tape and... bleh. Not only did the paint bleed a little under the tape, the stripe just looked heavy and sloppy. I had planned to do a second thinner stripe, but just scrapped the entire project once I saw the results of the first. Project fail.
Luckily, craft paint is pretty easy to clean off glass, especially when it's fresh. I soaked the shades in some hot water for a while.
