Fix the Elephant

Andra Van Der Westhuizen
by Andra Van Der Westhuizen
6 Materials
$3
4 Hours
Easy
Removing a porcelain elephant from a garden turned out to be a bit of work.
My sister has had it for ages, first in her house as an ornament and later on in the garden. Didn't care much for it, so gave it to me when I mentioned how nice it is.

I was chuffed and decided it would look great in my house somewhere, without the plant...
However, when the plant was removed, it was handled a bit too roughly and broke in pieces. I decided not to throw it away, but rescue it somehow. So at first I used a special epoxy to glue back the pieces I could. But, there was a gaping hole - that piece was broken too badly to repair.
I cleaned it up as best I could and got out the crack filler and the nail polish. This was not a restoration, but a repair job with whatever materials I had at hand...


To start off, I had to fashion some sort of backing for the filler to lean against while it dried, so I folded a newspaper a few times and covered it with tape. It was flexible enough be bent against the inside wall and then I used masking tape to hold it in place.
Next I applied the crack filler in a thick layer and left it overnight to dry properly. I decided to use this as it cleans up easily and is softer than plaster of paris to scrape off where necessary.
When dried, I cleaned off the excess filler with a wet sponge, gave it 10 minutes to dry and started to 'paint' with the nail polish I had.. different shades of green and blue and also white.
When done and dried (nail polish dried quickly) the newly painted area got a once over with clear nail polish to give it the shine effect of glazed porcelain.


Last small thing to do was to remove the backing stuck on the inside.
Of course the design and colouring is not exact so the sides do differ, but it is much more presentable and can be used again without a big gaping hole on the side and it can not go outside ever again for obvious reasons!
Resources for this project:
See all materials
Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Hometalk may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.More info
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
Comments
Join the conversation
 1 comment
Next