DIY Gold Elephant
Today, this post is about lucky, coincidentally one of the oldest symbols of good luck is the elephant and it is also my mother’s birthday. This is the gift I will be giving her today; our lucky family elephant revamped using gold leaf.
Please let me share with you, how I went about doing it:
To start the project, we bought two packets of “gold leaf” s, each packet contains 25 sheets, it was barely enough to finish this one foot and a half elephant:
Then I had to clean the elephant with a dry cotton cloth, if you try this project, please make sure to remove all the dust from every surface to ensure a smooth finish. Before you can start applying the gold leafs on the surface of the elephant, you will need to apply a metal leaf adhesive with a small brush. According to the instructions, you will need to wait about 45 minutes before applying a gold leaf but I didn’t, I only waited about 5 minutes until the surface became tacky. It worked just fine. I recommend using a spray metal leaf adhesive if you will be working with larger and uneven surfaces.
This is a picture of the metal leaf adhesive used:
The gold leaf sheets in their original package, each one is separated by a silk sheet (I am keeping these silk sheets because they might come in handy in another project):
I started by applying the first coat of metal leaf adhesive, only then realizing, I had put too much on one small surface:
I had to spread out the excess adhesive with the brush and waited for about 5 minutes before applying the gold leaf to the elephant’s back:
This is how my first gold leaf looks on the elephant’s back, it didn’t look very promising at first. Then, I thought to myself:
- I ruined it!
- What I am doing?
- Did I just waste $40?
- I destroyed our family elephant!
- Never mind, let’s move on!
See, in the picture below what I’m talking about? It doesn’t look great, it looks scary. After, I applied the first gold leaf, I started applying more metal leaf adhesive to the trunk of the elephant. While doing this process, I was scared of ruining this elephant that has been in our family for over a decade:
After several hours, OK let’s be honest here, after 5 hours of smelling glue and applying two packets of gold leafs to this enormous elephant, this is how it turned out, prior applying the final coat of sealant:
This is the metal leaf sealer, I used to finish and protect the elephant, the packaging is very similar to the adhesive, almost bought the same product twice:
When you open the metal leaf sealer, it looks just like glue, apply it with a small brush to the surface, this step will protect your new project:
This is how our lucky family elephant was transformed, now it really catches the eye when you enter the room.
This is a close-up picture of the trunk of the elephant:
This is a close-up picture of the back of the elephant and this is how my mom used to position it in her living room for luck:
