Update your decor with a can of spray paint and those old vases you have sitting in the back of a cupboard somewhere. Painted vases are the easiest, and least expensive way to add a bit of character to your space.
Hellooooo there my friends!
I am so excited today – MY COMPUTER IS WORKING!!
It has been a months-long battle with my iMac and I had resigned myself to throwing this one out (not even 2 years old) and buying a new. Not going to lie, that price tag would have hurt – a lot. Chris talked me into giving it one last shot and have an SSD drive installed and as much as I hate to say the words; he was right.
I edited today’s photos (and about 20 others that you won’t see in this post) in less than an hour!
I’m happy-wiggling in my seat here!!
I know – who cares – get to the point Shelly…
If you want a simple DIY decor project all you have to do is look in your basement, or the back of your cupboards or maybe tucked away in a box…
vases.
Do you remember the good ‘ole days – prior to marriage – when your sweetie bought you flowers? You likely still have those vases tucked away in a cupboard somewhere just waiting to be filled again.
BUT the current trend in home decor doesn’t seem to be floral arrangements – it’s more about the vases themselves as decorative pieces – so I purged my cabinet and found a few interesting shapes to work with.
You’re going to love this guys – it is SO EASY!
Painted Vases
You will need:
- vases
- matte spray paint
- stone accent spray paint
- (affiliate links to items I used. For full affiliate disclosure, please see sidebar or bottom of this page)
That’s it!
I bought one can each of matte black, matte white and Rust-Oleum’s Stone Accent spray paint and then went to “work”.
This blue-tinted vase:
after 3 coats of matte black spray paint – became this faux pottery vase:
I love this so much! There are some pottery vases out there that have been aged with mud etc – which I was going to do here – but the matte black was so crisp and clean I couldn’t bring myself to.
The black tray you see on my bar cart is/was just a lid to a dollar store cheese tray that I had tucked away. Adding the matte black spray paint to this gave me an inexpensive decorative try to fill with pine combs, or candles etc.
The orange ball you see in the first photo I decided to add some texture to.
When I saw how much orange was still showing through, I gave it a light dusting of matte white, and then sprayed another coat or two of the stone accent over top. I now have this beauty:
I could have done another coat to hide any of the orange peeking through, but I kind of like the depth and movement of it as it is.
The painted vase next to it was a typical vase that you get from most flower shops, but after spray painting it in a matte white, I used some ripped painter’s tape to create a jagged line along the bottom and then sprayed it with stone accents to give it a two-tone look.
I don’t think my shelves are quite balanced yet – but it’s certainly more interesting to look at than an orange ball and a clear glass vase right?
I wanted to try a different technique on each painted vase to show you a few different options.
The tall cylinder vase I spray painted with the matte white, but then ran a paint brush over it to give the paint some texture. I did this with all three coats to try and create a faux-pottery look. Honestly, I think chalk paint would have worked better here, but you don’t know until you try right? I can still try again tomorrow.
After the paint dried, I rubbed mud into the grooves. Yup, just a bit of soil from my house plants, rubbed in circles to get into all the nooks and crannies. Then just wipe off whatever you don’t want.
I was going for a faux-pottery look, but it almost looks like birch doesn’t it?
My last painted vase was actually from a vase I’d painted previously… and had added paper flowers to.
It was an early project on the blog, and while I liked it – I wanted to see if I could make it “better”.
For this painted vase, I applied 3 coats of stone accents, then spray painted OVER top in the matte white.
All of the texture without a different colour.
It certainly makes the flower vase look more like pottery than paper and spray paint don’t you think?
I’d like to tell you I have a favourite technique, but I don’t. I LOVE the matte black painted vase, but I don’t have a lot of rooms where black “pottery” would fit in.
I like the birch-look painted vase, but I think I’ll go over it with chalk paint to see if I can get more texture to grind mud into – just so it looks a bit more like aged pottery.
Who am I kidding – I like them all, and I especially like that all of these vases have gone to taking up space in the back of a cupboard, to DIY decor pieces at a minuscule price tag!
How about some for your Pinterest boards:
Have a great one everyone – and go spray paint something!!