I have to admit I feel a little dirty doing a project about how to make a knock-off of someone else’s jewelry, but I just keep telling myself that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If I were to meet Mr. Tom Binns I would flatter him silly I am such a huge fan of his work plus it's not like I am going to start selling these on Naughty Secretary Club. Diamonds and cameos combined with neon colors and words like chaos, how could I not love his style. When I kept seeing the No Time watches in magazines like Elle and Blogs like Fashiontribes (image via Schmashion/Elle) I kind of fell in love a little bit and cut a picture of the watches out of a magazine and stuck it up on my handy dandy inspiration board and waited for something to cook. Last week at the mega flea market I kept spotting all these broken men’s watches for prices like $1 and it came to me. I knew Krylon had some bright as all get out Floursent spray paint that would work on metal and paint pens called Brights . I snagged myself a few cans plopped down the 5 bucks for a handful of men's watches with interesting shaped faces and got busy.
1) CLEAN – I hate the cleaning part, but it is a necessary evil. After all the watches came from a flea market so they were kind of nasty dirty. I used a scrubber, warm water and soap and gave them a good once over to make sure all the grease came off. You want your spray paint on the metal, not dirt. Make sure the watches are completely dry.
2) PREP – Lay out some newspaper outside and set your watches on the paper.
3) PAINT – You are thinking duh I know how to spray paint something. I thought I did too. Ya know all those old sayings that your grandmother would tell you like “Impatient boys sometimes miss dessert” or “Good things come to those who wait”? Well she was right. Don’t get too heavy handed with your spray paint right off the bat. The key is several thin coats to build up an opaque look. I wanted the watches neon right then and I didn’t want to wait and I ended up having to scrape off thick paint and start again. If you go overkill with the paint you loose the definition of the watch and that is the fun part.
4) WEAR – After your several thin coats of paint have dried slap those babies on your wrist and sport them around town. I have a hot dinner date and art viewing with my lady friends this evening and I fully intend to work these bad boys into my outfit. I think I might even wear all 3 at once because I am crazy like that.
But wait you didn't use the Krylon Brights paint pens? Oh yes I did. Hope and I got a little crazy with 3 of the watches and the paint pens. I added stripes to one that had lost some of its definition. There was a second watch that had a few spots of newspaper stick to it so I covered the whole thing (including those spots) with polka dots! I did a double layer with hot pink dots and a tiny green center. Hope being the artist in the family took the watch to a new level with leopard print on the watch band and a rendition of her Tijuana Donkeys on the face! She used Sakura Souffle Pens for the detail. If only I had some waterslide decals on hand I would have put pictures of Hope’s new neon Blood Thirsty animals on the watch faces.
So there you have it, if you can’t afford a real No Time watch you can easily make yourself one in no time at all. I’m excited to have all this extra neon spray paint; nothing in my house is safe.
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