DIY Gold/Silver metal framing

So, as you've already seen from previous posts, I'm all about expensive looking home decor, but am also a budgeter, and all about saving where I can!

Lately, I've been really into gold accent pieces, but as I've found recently, for whatever reason, gold ups the price. But fear not! You wont find me paying more for the same product in gold :) - not if I can create it for half the price.

The latest piece I was in search of, was a large (I'm talking 36+ inch) gold framed mirror. I found a lot of gorgeous options, some of which spanned into the $300 range (no bueno). See below inspo:

But, I also found a lot of really affordable, well rated options on Amazon. After weighing the options, I ended up going with this one because it had a rubber frame, and lots of good reviews, and best of all, would arrive in 2 days and was under $150.

But now I was stuck with black, which is also really pretty, but just doesn't go with my rustic style, and I really wanted gold.

Luckily, I unexpectedly found the perfect solution in Hobby Lobby. I was there grabbing some craft supplies - and lord knows several other items I didn't need, and saw that they had fake metal metallic paint, and best of all, for only $1.99. I picked out the color '580 Taupe' which is a nice gold/champagne color, but was also eyeing the color 'Pearl'. Honestly I wasn't expecting it to be that great or to turn out as my 'final product'. But let me tell you, I was so pleasantly surprised by a product that was so inexpensive. In addition to the paint, I also picked up some sponge brushes (also super inexpensive).

The rest was pretty simple. I used the brushes to dab on the paint around the frame of the mirror. I personally did 3 coats, but 2 would possible be sufficient depending on what look you're going for. I used some painters tape to tape off the mirror portion and get the inner sides of the frame. The main key was to make sure you don't press too hard, real metal has a slight brushed finish, so the sponge brushes gave the perfect affect when pressed lightly with not a ton of paint on it.

Overall, Im pretty happy with how it turned out, and best of all, with all of the different color options, I got to pick exactly what color I wanted. These paints also seem like they'd be good for mixing if you wanted a rose gold, or other mixed color. I can't want to find other things in the house that I can paint to match :)

Close up image so you can see how it turned out. Not too bad for faux metal