DIY Painted Wooden Spindle Ornaments

A couple weekends ago, I went thrift shopping & scored all kinds of goodies! One thing I found was an old sewing machine drawer full of wooden spindles. Even though I really only wanted the drawer, the price for all of it was too good to pass up! That meant I had a drawer full of various sized spindles that I needed to find a purpose for. After a brainstorming session with my husband, I decided to turn them into painted wooden spindle ornaments. Yes, I know Christmas is miles away for some people, but in the crafting world you gotta plan ahead! ; )

The Score

Here’s the sewing machine drawer full of wooden spindles that I paid a whole $7 for! The drawer does still have the knob & I usually see them for sale for about $20 +/-, so this was a super deal.

I’ll be doing something with the drawer for a later project & I’ll be showing it off more in this Saturday’s podcast. Right now, I’m focusing on the wooden spindles. There were 3 different sizes in the drawer & I wanted to put eye hooks in the top for hanging.

The ones I had on hand were fine for the largest size, but seemed too big for the smaller ones, plus I wanted different finishes. I ordered this set of mini eye hooks in different finishes from Amazon {currently unavailable}. Unfortunately, they are way too small for using in wood!

After breaking off 3 of the 4 I tried to screw into the spindles, I decided I would need to find a different size for the smaller ones. For this project, I’m only working with the largest spindles. They already had a hole in one end too!

I had just enough eye hooks in my picture hanging kit to do 10 spindles. That leaves two without hooks, but they’ll join in the fun eventually! ; D

By the way, I used the nylon jaw pliers to screw in the eye hooks. This helps keep them scratch free & still get a tight fit.

Extreme Sheen

I decided to do five spindles one way & the other 5 a different way. For the first set, I wanted to try out my new DecoArt Extreme Sheen paints. I bought these a while back & they’ve been waiting for the perfect project! These come in lots of colors, which you can find here & here. Today I’m working with 24k Gold, Copper, & Bronze.

I started on the ends with the 24k gold. It’s very shiny with just one coat! I like that I can sort of see the wood grain through it a bit.

Next up was bronze & it did not disappoint! So shiny, again, with just one coat.

The last one was copper & it was not nearly as shiny & did not cover as well. I do like the look of it with the other paints.

It kind of reminds me of vintage glass ornaments with the pant rubbing off…

So very shiny!

Well, the paint lived up to it’s “extreme sheen” title in my opinion!

Icy Blast

For the second set, I wanted to go in the opposite direction. Instead of bright, shiny metals, I wanted cool icicles!

I coated the whole spindle with Americana Decor Chalky Finish in Vintage. Since this is bare wood, I knew the other acrylics I wanted to use would just look like a colored stain without a base coat.

Once that was dry, I painted the centers & dry brushed up each side a bit with an icy blue color. This paint is old & no longer available.

I used a darker blue on the ends…

They needed more sheen & shimmer, so I rubbed them down with Metallic Lustre Wax in Silver Spark. You can see the difference it made below…

They still needed a little more sparkle, so I broke out the crystal glitter!

A little craft glue on the ends & they were nice & frosty!

Just look at that shimmer & shine! There may be shimmer & shine everywhere in my craft room now as well. ; P

I really like how these turned out!

Glitter & gold!

I’ll be making the smaller ones into a garland, but I haven’t decided if I’ll do it like these or try something else. We shall see!

Which one is your favorite?

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