REFURBISHED Gold Leaf Clock

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We have been working on SO MANY projects for Miss Emma’s bedroom and this big, beautiful, painted clock in all its gold leaf glory is one of my favorites.

Supplies you will need to create your own refurbished gold leaf clock:

• Clock face, used or new, ours is 24 inch diameter
• Acrylic paint in 2 colors, pink and white
• Gold leaf, metal flakes
• Mod Podge or clear Elmer’s glue
• sponge brushes, small paint brushes
• Clear coat spray paint
• Craft sticks
• Clock works for the size of clock you have
• Clock hands
• Spray paint for craft sticks and hands (clock hands, not yours) 😉

Gather up supplies:

Emma’s bedroom has vaulted ceilings and the perfect spot for a big clock. We happened to have this one hanging out in the garage.

I originally purchased this big clock at Hobby Lobby with some friends and we painted them together. Hobby Lobby has clock parts and hands for lots of different sized clocks. First thing I had to do was remove the vinyl numbers and lettering from the clock.

TEXTURE:

I had done a crackle paint on this clock and decided to use my sander to remove some of the texture…but I ended up liking the texture and wished I had left more of it. Figures.

We used simple acrylic craft paint and a sponge brush to paint the face of the clock. The original plan was to do half pink and half white with a stripe of gold leaf across the middle.

After we painted the pink we did the white. I blended the colors a little and was liking the result.

While the paint was still a little wet we began adding the goldleaf flakes.

I bought my package of gold leaf at Hobby Lobby as well. It is not too expensive and you can find it at most craft stores in sheets or flakes. I bought the flakes. Sometimes I use my hands to pull pieces out of the package, other times I use tweezers.

We used a small paint brush to “paint” the flecks on. Isn’t that pretty?!

The clock stayed like this for several weeks as we tried to decide what to do about numbers for the clock. We considered vinyl roman numerals but couldn’t decide on a color. I had purchased white clock hands and thought white numbers would be great, but they wouldn’t show up on the white part of the clock. Doh! The idea came to mind to do little “ticks” around the clock in place of numbers. Wandering around Hobby Lobby we came across this little doll fence.

Each fence had 6 “posts” so I bought two. Perfect! I love to think outside the box when it comes to projects. Mini popsicle or craft sticks would have worked here as well and I wouldn’t have panicked when my toddler wandered off with one little piece!

GETTING CREATIVE:

We used wire cutters and cut the fences apart. Then we set it all out like this and stared at it for a while. We had planned to cover the wooden pieces in gold leaf, but didn’t love that idea anymore. Then we decided we did like the idea of brown on the clock and would spray paint the clock hands to match the wooden pieces. We found a spray paint called Metallic Rust and sprayed the hands and wooden pieces so they matched perfectly.

ARTISTIC LICENSE:

While all that was happening I decided I wanted to take the paint one step farther. That is the best thing about paint, you can always paint over it! I got my pink and white painted out again and started free handing some “waves”. Emma is super patient and just said, “of course you did” when I told her I decided to go crazy with the paint.

Anyone else use their wrist as a paint palette? No, just me? 😉

Holding both paints and both brushes in my hand, I painted and painted until I liked what I had. Emma also approved.

GOLD LEAF TOUCHES:

Next, it was time to add the gold leaf again. Normally I would use Mod Podge to adhere the gold leaf, but we recently moved and I couldn’t find mine. AND we were in quarantine for the Corona virus, so Hobby Lobby was closed. I found some of my kid’s clear Elmer’s glue and it worked just fine.

I did small sections at a time. Painted on the glue, added the gold leaf where it looked good, patted it down and brushed off excess with a dry paint brush.

The gold leaf makes it sooooo pretty!

It reminds me a little bit of a geode.

When we felt like it had enough gold leaf and had brushed off any extra little flakes, I sprayed the whole clock face with a clear coat. Once that was dry we laid out the number “ticks”. I have no idea what else to call them. Now how in the world were we going to get them to be straight? I decided to use a level.

MAKE ‘EM STRAIGHT:

We lined it up across the center hole and put the wooden pieces up against it and glued them down. My go to glue is E6000. To make sure the numbers were straight the other way we used the package of gold leaf as a square. I know, it was very technical. HA! For the rest of the pieces we measured between each quarter section and placed and glued them evenly.

Emma loves the finished product and we hope you do too! Let us know if you create a Refurbished Gold Leaf Clock of your own! We LOVE to see your pictures. You might also like Emma’s Acrylic Paintings, they are another beautiful piece of her bedroom re-design.

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