DIY Gold Foil Globe Update

I love seeing easy ways to get a little *glam* in your home decor, so I’m really excited to show you today’s guest project: a great thrifted gold foil globe! Amanda turned her Goodwill find into something right out of a catalog thanks to a few sheets of gold leaf:

Read below for all the details of Amanda’s project — it’s easier than it looks! And if you’re looking for other ways to bring a little gold bling into your home, try one of these:

Ready to go gold? Say hello to Amanda and leave her some Remodelaholic love in the comments!

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DIY Gold Foil Globe
by Amanda from Love & Renovations

Hi, there! I’m Amanda and I blog over at Love & Renovations. I write about home decor, DIY projects, and how my husband and I are turning our 80’s, builder-grade home in something a little more special. We have a lot of fun getting creative with our home – some of my favorite projects we’ve ever done include our DIY multi-bulb dining room chandelier, our West Elm-inspired wood-tiled dresser, and most recently, our painted faux granite countertops!

Can’t see the video? Check it out over on our YouTube channel and subscribe, pretty please!

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today – today I want to share a quick and easy upgrade that we did to a globe we found at Goodwill. We were browsing one day looking for inspiration for a completely different project when we stumbled on this globe. It’s not often that you find something like this in the thrift store for such a good deal – we only paid $25 for it, and it was in great shape! We knew right away it was the kind of globe that could be made into something amazing, even if it didn’t look like anything special at the time. This project ending up being so fun, easy to make, and is probably one of my favorite makeovers we’ve ever done!

So, like I mentioned – the project all started with a plain globe that I found at Goodwill – it was a bit dusty but other than that it was in great shape…it was just a little boring. I knew I could fix that, though. I brought it home and cleaned it up, then I brainstormed what I wanted to do to make it over.

My husband suggested trying a new medium we had never worked with before – gold leaf– and the idea was born to create a black & gold globe.

I started off by using a bit of craft paint to paint all of the oceans black. This part was a little intimidating at first, but I didn’t allow myself to get too concerned about perfection. I’m not using the globe for geographical accuracy, so no one is going to miss a tiny island or two.

 

Once I had the oceans completely covered, I allowed it to dry for a few minutes and then I went back in with some gold leaf for the land areas. I hadn’t ever worked with gold leaf before, but it was much easier than I expected – it’s practically foolproof!

All it took was using a small brush to paint the adhesive on a small area, waiting about 5-10 minutes, and then sticking the gold leaf on. The directions say to wait longer, but I found that it lost some of the stickiness if I waited too long. I pressed the gold leaf onto the adhesive, made sure it was nice and sticky, and then I brushed off the excess. Sometimes I found that there were still bare spots, so I just repeated the process. It’s almost impossible to make this stuff look bad! [You can get both the gold leaf and the adhesive together in a kit, as well.}

It only took me about two hours to tackle this entire project, and I am absolutely in love with the results!

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Amanda, thanks for visiting and sharing your great thrifted globe update with us! I love it!

Remodelaholics, show Amanda some love in the comments and be sure to go check out more of her projects at Love & Renovations — you’re going to want to check out her kitchen renovations and her beautiful dining room light for sure!