Over the moon for mercury glass

This weekend my best friend Allie helped me with a wedding DIY! For my wedding I knew that I wanted to have mercury glass votive holders. Here is a picture of mercury glass for those of you who are unfamiliar with it:

I have always loved the way the candle light shines through and we have some of these in our built-in in our living room.

I knew that these would be at least $5 per votive holder. That's a great price if you are just buying three for your living room. However, when you are looking to decorate a whole reception that gets a little pricey. So, I went to my one true love and bearer of all things, Craig's List. I started by just searching for regular votive holders because I knew I could DIY the mercury glass part.

Now, be warned, you have to do some major sorting when it comes to Craig's List. But the hunt is my favorite part! I just searched wedding and have been basically since I got engaged (I know, I know, I need to go to Craig's Listaholics anonymous). Again, another warning is that you can find some fantastic wedding decorations from chic brides just trying to make some money off their decorations they don't have a use for anymore. However, you can also find some ugly things and some sad things. Here are my two favorite wedding hunting examples. The first is: My fiance and I aren't getting married anymore, buy my engagement ring (sad). The second: I am selling my wedding ring for two Brickyard tickets (talk about the happy husband she'll have). Like I said, some of the classiest people are posting.

Anyways, excuse the tangent, I ended up finding about 25-30 large votive holders for $20. Here is a picture of just the votive holders I bought:

The next step was to look up DIY mercury glass and gather materials. Here is the tutorial:

What you'll need:

Clear glass votive holders

Silver metallic spray paint

A spray bottle filled with water

Cardboard or newspaper for a work area

Steps:
1. Place all of the votive holders on the cardboard or newspaper
2. Start by spraying one of the votive holders with water. You want it to just be random. Dump out any excess water.
3. Spray the inside of the votive holder with silver spray paint.
4. Repeat with all votive holders.
5. Let dry.

See it's so simple and fun! Here is a picture of mine drying in the sun:

And here is a picture of the finished product. I think these will be a great compliment to the reception and an inexpensive one at that.