My completed DIY gold bowls

Having made a post a while back about DIY gold leaf vases, I decided to try it myself, after all that is what this blog is all about!  And finally the project is complete and the bowls can be photographed!

Here they are:

Some things I learnt through this process:

• I decided not to use the gold leaf, as originally thought.  I spoke to somebody at an art shop and they thought gold paint was just as effective (and a whole lot cheaper!).  I decided to give it a bash, and am really glad.  It looks very striking and you can’t see the paint strokes.  In order to do this, I painted alternate layers in opposite directions, that way the streaks were covered over.
• I found a can of white gloss spray paint in the garage and used that on the outside.  Using spray paint is way quicker than painting on-I would highly recommend it!  And the gloss makes it look quite snazzy.
• To make the decoupage, I blew up balloons (not fully though) and with masking tape attached a slice of polystyrene cup to the top of the balloon (which has made the base of the bowl which it now stands on).  As you can see from the pic, the two bowls have different size bases.  The reason-I used the top of the polystyrene cup for the one, and the bottom of the polystyrene cup for the other!
• I used watered down wood glue for the decoupage, rather than flour and water.  It dried a whole lot quicker and made it far sturdier.  I highly recommend it.
• I didn’t pop the balloon once I was finished, I simple peeled it away from the hardened decoupage (which was a good 7 layers thick).
• I made sure to smooth down each and every piece of newspaper, so that there were no bumps, as they tend to get accentuated when the final product is painted.

As you can see, this blog most certainly isn’t here to show off my amazing photographic skills, far from it!  But I hope this has given you a taster of what you can do at home with just some glue, newspaper and some odd paint lying around!