So I have had the opportunity to try something that I have always wanted to do. My darling brother (cough) Keenan (cough), during an intense argument about which Disney movie is the best of all time, waved his hand and knocked over one of my pottery bowls and chipped the hell out of it.
Guess who broke my bowl....
I have a lot of ceramics around my home, so I am pretty used to fixing things with super glue. But one day, during my daily perusing of the internet, I came across this Japanese technique of fixing broken pottery with lacquer with gold powder mixed in. Look at these, they are gorgeous!
I decided to try this for myself and fix my broken ceramics with this technique from here on out. I just love the philosophy of "I will not hide my damage, it makes me beautiful." Now I did not actually do this the traditional way because I don't have time to rub gold dust into lacquer and hoping that it sticks. But I did get the below:
Supply List
1 - broken piece of pottery with all the pieces
1 - tube of 527 Multi-Use Glue
1 - bottle of gold finish Acrylic Paint ( I used Enamels high-gloss finish paint) and it's dishwasher safe which is a bonus!
1 - Xacto Knife
1 - VERY tiny paint brush
You should be able to find all of this from Wal-Mart. Now you ask "Tyeesha, why didn't you go to an Art and Crafts store to get your supplies?" Normally I would, but apparently the only store open at 8 am in Indianapolis is Wal-Mart. I'm a early bird but if you can wait two hours, you can get these at any art supply store.
First you want to glue your ceramic back together. If you have smaller pieces that need to come together first glue them and then put the entire piece in. (note: you can have enough glue to bunch out a bit and you don't want the pieces pressed together too tightly. We need a gap to put the gold in!)
your bowl is now finished!
Once the glue drys, you can paint the puffy glue edges in gold if you want. If you want the flushed look, go ahead and take the Xacto knife and cut away the glue until you have a slight groove all along the crack. It doesn't have to be deep, just enough for the paint to get in.
Then CAREFULLY paint in your gold paint into the groove with your paint brush. If you get some paint outside the crack, let it dry and use your xacto knife to scrape the excess away. I actually scrapped the excess into the groove and it has a nice gold effect that I find really nice!
Then you are done! A lovely new piece for your home. Now when people see it and ask about it you have a good story to go along with your new piece.