Yes, MOAR silver spraypaint

Spray painted sea shells!

Ahhh, Silver Spray Paint, is there nothing you cannot do?

Well, yes.  For one thing, the picture above is not a DIY silver spray paint project.  These shells are professionally silvered, you can buy them from Creel and Glow, and they're a bit pricier than you might expect.  The most affordable option is $40, but most of the shells are over $100 a piece, going up to $1500. 

I understand wanting to create a less expensive option for such a lovely look.  And it appears the the blog that originally posted the picture  was using it as inspiration for a project idea, rather than presenting the picture as her own work.  It's the Pinner who decided to label a picture of professionally silvered shells as "spray painted sea shells!" who is in the wrong here.

In any case, the link from the pin doesn't work anymore - the blogger removed taken that page.  I don't know if they got complaints from fans who couldn't get their shells to come out like the picture, or if they were asked to remove the image by the owners.  One more Pin with a broken link.

Spraypaint a Pumpkin Through a Doily

Well, at least it's not silver this time

Using a paper doily and spray paint to make a fancy pumpkin. by joanne

This pin goes to Indulgy, which is an inferior version of Pinterest.  That's annoying - but what's worse is that it doesn't even go to the correct Indulgy post, it goes to a black pumpkin with silver glitter on it.

Okay, so that's enough to qualify for a post here, but then there is the pin's description, which is also erroneous.  This pumpkin project is actually from Better Homes and Gardens, and they did not use spray paint; they used a stencil brush and paint.

So there you go.  

"Fangs" for coming to my party

Spray paint some dollar store fangs for great card holders with person's name on them and/or what the food on a buffet is. 

Again with the silver spray paint.  It's nearly as popular as glow sticks.  If someone finds a way to combine silver spray paint and glow sticks, they'll be able to take over the world.  Or at least the corner of the world occupied by Pinterest crafters (a not inconsiderable portion).

On to this particular pin.  The picture here is not showing cheap plastic fangs that someone painted.  These are from the Pottery Barn.  They don't appear to carry them any longer.

I'm not saying you couldn't do this, but I am saying that what you're seeing in the picture are professionally produced silver fangs, not Dollar Store fangs that someone gussied up on her own.

If you can't duplicate this with silver spray paint, you might try painting the teeth black and then using silver Rub n' Buff.

Chrome Pumpkins

Shiny!

Chrome metallic spray painted dollar store pumpkins!

These look great.  Very shiny, very metallic.  Similar to the Mercury Glass Pumpkins that I posted about before.  Silver pumpkins are apparently very "in" this year.

Lets get down to brass (silver?) tacks:  This picture is misleading.  It was obviously taken soon after these pumpkins were sprayed.  After the paint cures, the shine is diminished:

Live Love DIY

That's pretty much it - if you use metallic spray paint on Dollar Store (or probably any) plastic or foam pumpkins, they will be a little dull.  Still pretty, but the pin should use this picture because it's more realistic.  

Masks With Glow Sticks

Hint: Not Glow Sticks

masks + glow sticks = great Halloween inspiration

Nope.  Not glow sticks.  It's never glow sticks.  

I feel like Dr. House.  "It's never Lupus."  I mean, how many times has a glow-in-the-dark pin ACTUALLY been done with glow sticks?

This looks like a case of someone either making a bad guess as to how this picture was achieved, or they actually did read through the description and decided that glow sticks would probably work just as well, so they put that in their description.

These masks are being illuminated from within by electric tea lights:

From Craftster

If you want to see how they did it, there's the link.  It's not hard, but it's not glow sticks.  Anyone who looks at the pin should be able to tell by the radiance and color, but you never know what people will believe. 

Someone should try it with glow sticks and post their picture.

Glass Block Jack O'Lantern

Talk about the missing link...

Square glass votive from Michaels filled with string lights (battery operated ) felt cut-outs for the face and wrapped in orange tulle and topped off with a black bow and black pipe cleaners, corkscrewed. CUTE! :)

A Clear glass block from Michael's or any craft store, paint or glue black fabric on for the face, add battery lights or a candle, then a bit of tied up orange tulle or chiffon.

light block jack-o-lantern. Clear glass blocks at Michael's or any craft store.

This looks like a great do-it-yourself project.  And it very well may be a great project, but the pins with this picture (so far) do not lead to a tutorial.  The links in those pins lead to....nowhere.   

For the first pin I found, the link returned "Blog not found." 

For the second pin I found, the link returned "Page not found." 

Same result for the third as the second.  It's as if this picture is cursed!  

Even when I eventually tracked this picture down to an Etsy seller, that page disappeared after I bookmarked it for use in this post.  I'm guessing that Etsy's new business plan was unsavory to this seller and she decided to move her shop.  She's set up at 805 Design Co now, if you're interested in her creations.

Those broken links bother me.  They bother me because I suspect that those bloggers are the type of people who take pictures they don't own and pretend to have done a project that they have never actually attempted.  If that's the case, then I'm glad their sites/pages are gone.

I mean, what happens?  You do a Google search, find something that looks cool, and then just pass it off as your own with a little creative writing?  That sucks.

Plus, they're just wrong.  That is not a "votive" (nor is it a "votive holder").  It's not using black fabric or felt cut-outs for the face.  

That is an acrylic block with vinyl on it.  

Let's have a little more honesty in our online crafts.  I'm not saying it would be impossible to reverse-engineer this project, but give 805 Design some credit for coming up with it and also creating a picture that apparently appealed to everyone.  Not everyone can photograph their creations in a way that inspires others.  Not everyone can come up with the idea for a craft like this, so it doesn't matter how easy it looks to you - you didn't think of it.  Give the person who DID think of it their due.

Okay, rant over.  Have fun making your acrylic block jack o'lanterns.  Me personally?  I'd go with the thin acrylic block, battery powered LEDs, vinyl mouth and eyes, orange tulle, and some decorative Halloween ribbon.  Maybe a few black and orange pipe cleaners wrapped around a pencil to coil them nicely.

Glowing Bubbles

Not to burst your bubble, but this isn't going to yield glowing orbs of soap and glycerin

Cut open glow sticks & pour them into bubble solution. Glow in the dark bubbles. Summer nights here we come!

There are a few reasons why this pin doesn't work as described.  First, some kinds of glow stick solution mixed into bubble solution change the properties of the bubble solution so that you cannot make bubbles with it.  Second, even if you manage to get bubbles, they are unlikely to have enough of the glow solution to make visibly glowing bubbles.  The bubbles are just too thin to contain enough glow solution to appear to the naked eye.

Here's a video of someone attempting to mix a glowstick and bubble solution.  They did get the bubbles to form, but they don't appear to be glowing.   They very well may show up with special photography equipment in a very dark room, but to the naked eye and the camera they used, nothing showed up.  However, the experimenters did note that when the bubbles landed and popped, the pool of solution did glow.

Finally, the picture that is on this pin is NOT of someone dumping an opened glow stick into a jar of bubble solution.  This picture is of someone attempting to use Super Miracle Bubbles® GLOW FUSION™ Bubble Solution.  This product is similar to a glow stick solution, in that you mix the parts together to get a chemical reaction that causes the glow.

However, even this solution, which is designed to create glowing bubbles, failed to produce any visible-in-the-dark bubbles.  Those people had the same experience with the invisible bubbles popping and then the solution from the popped bubble would be concentrated enough for the glow to become visible.

Maybe the best way to get bubbles that you can see in the dark would be to get some highlighters, mix their contents with bubble solution, and blow bubbles under a black light.

Word to the wise - glow sticks have a glass capsule inside of them; this is what you break to release the activator.  If you cut open a glowing stick, you risk also releasing glass shards.  Be careful.