Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Upcycling: gold leopards to stone leopards


Just like Medusa from Greek mythology, I turned these leopards into stone. 


Or at least, faux stone.


When I was sorting through Christmas décor, I found these leopards at the bottom of a box of holiday décor. The leopards are made from paper mache and I think they were a gift. They’ve never worked with out with my holiday look…


I started by covering the leopards with a white paint primer.


To achieve this faux stone look, I mixed the same white paint and some leftover grout. 


Once the white paint grout mixture was dry, I distressed the leopards a little. I know there’s special paint you can purchase to give projects a distressed look but I used Martha Stewart Liquid Gilding in silver. 


I applied the gilding with a cheap course bristle brush very sparingly and used a toothpick to add a few dots here and there. Close up the gilding has a pretty metallic sheen. 


It would be fun to apply this faux stone or as I call it {Medusa} technique to a variety of objects.


This project is linked at the parties listed here

5 comments :

  1. Gosh Carolyn, I was just thinking today "how could I make some slick-looking pottery into more of an earthenware look?" and I think your paint and grout technique might just do the trick! Thanks for sharing your "Medusa" touch.

    ReplyDelete
  2. that is so very clever of you to think of adding sandy grout to alter the texture! great results and I'm a fan of the silvery touch too. I'll have to remember that liquid gilding product you mentioned. It's just amazing how many versatile products are available :) great job!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Leopardi su ti prekrasni,pomislila sam da su isklesani od kamena,nikad ne bih pogodila da su od papira. Sviđa mi se kako si ih pozlatila...
    Pozdrav.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Grout, huh? I have to stick this on my pinterest, what a neat idea. But to be fair, this is a wonderful post altogether. I have to say, I love the kind of ancient egyptian look of the "before" leopards. Like something Tutankhamen would have played with as a little boy, before ruling an empire became his job and he had himself killed. Poor lad. Anyway- the after- look is even better! You don't just go for spray paint, do you? :) And your photography is stunning. Take THIS, snake head!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm loving these revamps of painting animal toys!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment. I enjoy reading and responding to your comments. If you do not hear back from me via email your profile is most likely defaulted to no reply-comment or anonymous and I am unable to respond.