Simply Beautiful By Angela

creating simple beauty on a budget

Vintage Dome Clock Makeover

 

Hello my wonderful friends and welcome to another fun Thrift Store Décor Upcycle Challenge!  This is my 4th month participating and it’s quickly become my favorite day of the month. I have so much fun seeing all of the amazing things that my blogger buddies come up with!

Confession time.  For this month’s challenge I had originally planned to do a cool lamp makeover. I was about 90% done with it last week but then we had a SUPER busy weekend! On Saturday I threw a big party at the house for the hubby’s birthday and on Sunday my best friend had her housewarming party.  So needless to say, the poor lamp is still sitting unfinished in the garage!

So for this month’s challenge I decided to show you a project that I did last summer and just never got around to blogging about!  Sound good?  Okay 🙂

Thrift Store Decor Upcycle Challenge

 

The Rules:

  • Upcycle an item(s) from a thrift store, resale store, or garage sale into a new piece of decor.
  • There’s no monthly theme.
  • There’s no budget to stick to.

Meet the Hosts

Make sure you follow our board on Pinterest for more upcycled decor inspiration!

Supplies Used: (Affiliate links may be provided for convenience.  For more info, see my full disclosure here.)

I’ve noticed that these clocks are pretty common at thrift stores.  A little bit of digging on Google told me that they are torsion pendulum clocks, or often called anniversary clocks.  That’s too fancy for me though–I just call them dome clocks!

I picked this guy up on a 50% day at Goodwill for $3 dollars.  The pendulum was broken but I didn’t care about function since I just wanted to use it for décor.

They are almost always brass so I felt a little guilty about painting it and taking away from it’s “true vintage vibe” but I’m just not a brass kind of girl.

When it comes to metal I am drawn to gray tones like nickel, pewter and steel.  Although I did step out of my comfort zone a couple of weeks ago to try copper on my DIY dipped tin cans and I fell in love!

 
Anyways,  I knew that the brass had to go.  I gave the whole thing a coat of my trusty Rust-Oleum Hammered Metal Finish Spray Paint.  I love that I don’t have to worry about sanding first or having a perfectly smooth surface since this paint is designed to create a rough texture.

 
While that was drying I found an image of a Roman numeral clock online and printed it out on some scrap paper that had a planked wood design on it.  I then used my spay tacky to stick it on.
 
 

I wanted it to look old and tarnished so I dry brushed some dark gray acrylic paint over the entire piece.  If you aren’t familiar with dry brushing, all you need to do is dip a dry brush in a small amount of paint, wipe as much as you can off on a rag then drag the brush across your surface.

It created the perfect aged finish!

It was just a simple update but it feels like a totally new piece.

And yes, there is a reason I set the time to where it’s at!  We got married in the month of April at 11:00, hence the hour hand at the 11 and the second at the 4.

You can also use these as a decorative cloche if you unscrew the clock mechanism from the bottom and remove it.  I had done this to a larger one that I picked up shortly after this one.  Sadly my clumsy self knocked it over one day as I was hauling a headboard downstairs and it shattered. 

Be sure to check out my previous Thrift Store Décor Upcycle Challenge projects below!



Thrifted Pedestals Makeover
Thrifted Pedestals Makeover
Dated File Cabinet Industrial Makeover
Dated File Cabinet Industrial Makeover
Thrifted Hanging Bucket
Thrifted Hanging Bucket

Linking up to these awesome parties!

And now for more thrifty goodness!

 

Check out what my fellow upcyclers created below!

Comments

  2. Wow, what a beautiful updated. I do love hammered paint, that stuff is awesome.
    Your clock is so much prettier now than the old brass finish. The new face you created for it really changes the entire feel, a little old world meets new. Just beautiful!!

  6. I am totally in love with that finish! I think I had one of these clocks at one time, and I have no idea where it is now. 🙁 Genius idea to position the hands for a special date and time.

  8. I am not a brass girl either and I love the hammered spray paints. This and the new face made such a difference. I am going to need to look for these. I usually just pass them right up in the thrift store.

  9. Such a nice update, looks better than new. The dry brush technique worked great on this project. I too am clumsy and break my own things so I feel your pain! Can't wait to see that lamp makeover!

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