Disclosure: This is a sponsored post, but all opinions are my own.
As I mentioned earlier this month, we had some redecorating planned for Grace's bedroom.
You know, the one Joe sleeps in.
Anyway.
Grace wanted to put Peter Pan and Tinkerbell on the ceiling in glow-in-the-dark paint, and she wanted a glittery trail of fairy dust to swirl across the ceiling and across the walls.
Not too ambitious, right? Joe is a capable painter. I knew he could handle her request.
Our first step was to find stencils of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.
I couldn't find stencils of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. I tried craft stores, Walmart, home improvement stores, ebay, and amazon. No stencils.
DisneyPaint.com suggests five different stenciling methods to make things a little easier.
After reading that, I decided to find images online and make my own stencils. There are some printable stencils at DisneyPaint.com, but there is no Peter Pan. Grace and I Googled and Googled and Googled until we found just the right pictures, and I used a little Photoshop prowess to turn them into silhouettes.
Joe cut out my paper stencils. He traced Tinkerbell right on the ceiling in her 8.5x11 form, but Peter Pan posed a challenge. To make him bigger, we borrowed an overhead projector from our church.
That made Peter about three feet tall, just what Grace wanted.
Joe traced the figures onto the ceiling with a pencil. I don't think I'd recommend that since the pencil becomes permanent when you paint over it with glow in the dark paint.
Ooops.
The next step was to tape off the pixie dust trail that would swirl across the ceiling and three walls.
Joe suggested that the pixie dust spread out across the third wall and completely cover the fourth wall (which was behind me in the photo above). Â Grace and I thought that was a great idea.
The next step was to get out the paint and put it on the walls. Grace loves painting.
I had given Joe the instructions for the All That Glitters Topcoat a couple of weeks prior to his actually painting, and he forgot what they said. He treated it like regular old paint, and he ended up having to do a second coat as the glitter was too sparse and streaky.
The idea is to get the milky white color thick and uniform.
After reading the instructions, Joe painted the second coat on much thicker and the glitter was a lot more even and better looking.
Except in this one spot, next to Grace's closet door. For some reason, it looks like a bottle of glitter exploded. There's a ton of it right in that one spot. Joe isn't sure how it happened; it could have been user error.
That one weird spot aside, here's what most of the pixie dust looks like. Remember, this is one whole wall, most of a second, and a swirly trail on the last two.
You can see the difference between the plain paint on the right and the glittery topcoat on the left.
The topcoat is really neat. It's very subtle; it only glitters when light hits it.
I have to disagree with Disney and Glidden on one point. In all the printed material, they say that All That Glitters works best over light colors. I think it looks best over the dark pink. It shimmers there, whereas it is more obvious and a little darker over the white ceiling.
Here's a panorama of the room with the glitter on and the tape off.
That one seems more distorted than the first panorama; I'm not sure why. If you compare the two, you can see where the topcoat goes across the ceiling, down the far wall, under the shelf, back up behind the door, and across the left wall towards me. The wall that's all glittery is behind me.
Here's a close-up of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell:
I tried a few different tricks to get a dark and glowing picture of them, but I couldn't make that work. They do glow in the dark, though, and they started glowing even before the paint was dry.
See what I mean about the glitter topcoat? You can see everywhere it is (and isn't) on the white ceiling. Joe has promised me that he'll cut in with a brush to make the glitter come right up to Peter's outline. He wanted to do one more coat of glow-in-the-dark before he added the glitter up close.
On one hand, I don't like the visible pencil outlines. On the other hand, because we didn't paint a color before doing the glow in the dark paint, Peter and Tink would be virtually invisible when the room is lit up. So I guess the pencil lines might be a good thing. Grace likes them.
One more picture, to show you what the pixie dust trail looks like on the far wall. For reference in the panorama, this is on the right side and above the shelf on the far wall.
See what I mean about the topcoat being almost invisible on the dark wall, except where the light hits it? It's really a cool effect, and Grace loves it.
Joe and I considered a third coat of the glitter, to make it a little more obvious (maybe?), but Grace really loves the glitter just the way it is. We decided it wasn't worth putting in the extra effort. If you do it right the first time, they say you should only need one coat.
To say that Grace is elated is a wild understatement. She liked her pink room, but now she is sure she has the coolest room on the planet.
I agree.
Compensation and products for review were provided by Glidden via MomTrends. Â The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions of Glidden.
Nicole Feliciano says
You did the ceiling! That is so awesome.
Tara Ziegmont says
Thanks 🙂 It was a labor of love, but the effects ARE really, really cool.
Rs says
This is beautiful! What color pink did you use under the glitter!!
Tara Ziegmont says
I don't remember. We got it from Lowe's about three years ago. We just went in and picked the most obnoxious hot pink they had.
Cyndia says
Ok, now it's been a few months; what is your review of the Disney paint? Not the specialty finishes, but the wall paint. Does it hold up as well to cleaning as advertised?
Tara Ziegmont says
We actually didn't use the wall paint. The walls were already hot pink. We only used the glitter and glow in the dark finishes which have held up very nicely and still look exactly the same as in the post.
Merry says
I tried the Glidden glittery silver paint over White paint on an accent wall. It came out a gray color and you could barely see any glitter. At this point I decided to paint the walls a medium gray color in hopes to have the glitter show. I am on my 4th coat now and it is very streaky and white milky color in various areas of the wall. I really wanted to have this glitter effect but it looks terrible. It was worse on the white then it is since I painted the walls Gray with the Glidden glittery topcoat paint. Actually I would not recommend this glitter a paint at all. I'm about to paint completely over it. It definitely does not look like any of the pictures that the Glidden Paint Company shows in its ads! I noticed in your pictures it is milky on that pink. Was he ever able to get that off? If so how did he do it? I'm giving this sticker coats but it is blotchy everywhere on the wall. Thank you for any feedback.
Tara Ziegmont says
I'm thinking maybe the problem was that you put it over white paint? We put ours over a very, very bright hot pink wall, and the glitter is very strong and shows up quite well. We still have it, and we still love it, all these years later. I don't think there's any milky appearance at all once it's dry. The glitter is an opalescent color and the pink shines through nice and bright as always.
One thing to note - it is very milky when you first put it on, but once it dries, the paint is clear with glitter mixed in.