When I was designing Andrea's sophisticated bedroom for the recent episode of OMG We're Coming Over, she told me she liked glitter and especially silver. So I wanted to give her a nice patch of shiny-ness, but since we were going classy/glam with the design, I didn't want to give her the usual small-scale glitter. While brainstorming another option, I realized that there was a very familiar beauty in crumpled aluminum foil, especially when it was hit by the light *just so.* It looks like glitter! But bigger!
What came of this DIY decor adventure was an awesome, 3D piece of wall art that was big without being expensive, sparkly without being too youthful, and a great alternative to a mirror for some light-reflective sheen. This project would also look amazing sprayed gold or rose gold over the silver foil!
Prep It:
Wood canvas panel Aluminum foil E6000 or hot glue Silver spray paint Silver paint White paint Flat paintbrush Painters tape
Do It!:
- Start by painting the edges of your canvas white. While the paint is drying, start prepping your foil. Tear sheets of different sizes and start crumpling into different shapes. As a rule, you'll not want the foil too compactly crumpled, or else you'll lose the beautiful, interesting angles! Be gentle, but get creative!
- Using the E6000 or hot glue, start adhering the foil to the canvas. Get as close to the edges as you can, but don't stress about getting your crumpled foil creations flush to the edge. While glueing, you can assess if there are parts of the canvas that need more foil, or if you'd like to get topographic with it and create different areas of height! It's a work and glue as you go process, so there's lots of time and opportunity to make yours uniquely what you want. Tip: If you want a nice heigh area with strength, stuff some scrap pieces of foil behind the piece to raise the height and reinforce.
- You can finish the foil-gluing part of this project using small pieces with the straight edge of the foil along the edges of the canvas to fill those empty gaps.
- When all the foil is glued down, use painters tape to tape off your white edges. Then uncap yourself some liquid silver foil or Looking Glass spray paint and paint over some areas of the foil creating dimension and filling in any gaps where the canvas is still seen.
- Let your paint dry and remove the painters tape from the edges. Hang your new magnified glitter somewhere with lots of light, and let it do its shimmering, sparkling thing!
