Easy DIY Painted Vases

Inside: A step-by-step tutorial for DIY painted vases.

Spring is in the air!

I think it is definitely safe to say that spring has finally sprung — at least where I live it has.  We are past the rollercoaster temperatures, and there are flowers popping up everywhere.

Spring is my absolute favorite season.  I love the flowers and new life, the colors (hello pink!), the thunderstorms – which we currently have rolling through our area right now – and the warming temperatures.   

And, of course, I love the decorating.  😉  Dare I say, I might even like decorating for spring more than I do for Christmas…

I can’t believe I just said that out loud.  I’ll probably be banned from decor circles for the rest of my life for admitting that.  But don’t leave just yet!  I have something fun for you all today.

Starting today, I am joining with a group of bloggers once a month for Thrift Store Transformations!  Every month, we will all be transforming something that we picked up at the thrift store and sharing it with you.  Leslea over at A Heart Filled Home has put this fantastic group together, and I am so excited to be a part of it.  It will be a testament to the fact that you don’t have to spend extravagantly in order to have beautiful decor.  

You will be able to find links to everyone’s projects down at the bottom of this post.  So, be sure to check them all out!

My thrift store transformation this month was definitely spring inspired.  I love having flowers around my house, particularly during the spring.  And while I love fresh flowers, I especially love faux flowers that can stay on display for an extended period of time.  Plus, no maintenance!

While perusing the aisles of the thrift store recently, I stopped to look at all of the glassware.  (The thrift store always has a ton of glassware on the shelves.  So, if you are ever in need of something glass, don’t forget to check your local thrift store.)  I saw a few bud vases and thought it would be nice to display some fake stems in them.  Then, I thought it would be even more fun if I spiced up the vases a bit and painted them.

The vases ranged from $.99 to $1.99, and I already had everything else on hand.  So, I figured even if they didn’t turn out well, I wouldn’t be out too much money.

Fortunately for me, they are adorable!  And they were quite easy, although I did learn a a few things along the way.

Here’s what I did – 

Supplies:

1. Bud vases
2. Acrylic craft paint
3. Wire cooling rack (or something similar)
4. Wax paper (or something similar)
5. Cookie sheet (optional)

Step 1: Clean 

The first thing I did was clean my vases up.  You will want to allow plenty of time for them to dry on the inside, as the paint won’t stick if they are still wet.

Step 2: Paint

I used some Craft Smart acrylic paint that I already had on hand.  I decided to do 3 different colors just for fun.  From left to right, the colors I chose were Light Pink, Pink, and Robin Egg Blue.

To paint, I simply poured some paint into a vase, and slowly rolled it around coating the inside.  This was a bit of a slow process, but not too bad.  I added paint as needed until the entire inside of the vase was covered.

I had placed some wax paper on the bottom of a cookie sheet with an old cooling rack on top of it.  Once the insides of the vases were coated, I turned them upside down and placed them on the cookie sheet to dry.

You will definitely want to have something down underneath the vases, as there will be a lot of run off paint.

*These will need a few days to dry completely.

Step 3: Clean up edges

Here’s where I learned my first lesson.  Once the vases were dry and I turned them over, there was a fair amount of paint pooled on the top edge.  The edges of the two true bud vases were fairly easy to clean.  I simply scraped most of the paint off with my fingernail, then smoothed the edges a bit with my fingers.

The vase that I painted light pink, though, didn’t work out quite so well.  There was a ton of paint pooled unevenly on the flared edge, and I just couldn’t get it to come off nicely.  So, the edge of that particular vase is really rough and horribly uneven.

Therefore, I would suggest going with vases that have a very narrow opening.

Step 4: Display

The only thing left to do is pop some pretty flowers in them and admire.

*The other lesson I learned is to make sure the vases are very clean inside.  I ended up with some paint lines in the vase on the right.  I believe this is because I didn’t get the inside cleaned well enough.  (Truthfully, I was in a bit of a hurry to get this project completed, and I didn’t run these through the dishwasher.  I just did the best I could by hand.)

Lesson learned for next time.

I still think they turned out pretty cute for my first attempt, though.  🙂

If you have arrived here from Kim’s blog Our NC Nest, I hope you enjoyed my thrift store transformation!  Be sure to head on to Hayden over at Hayden Scharrer to see what she has got for you.

And if you are just getting started, here is the list of everyone participating.  You won’t want to miss any of them!

A Heart Filled Home

Sunshine Valley

Jessica Simmons

Our NC Nest

Health Home and Heart

Hayden Scharrer

Laila Belles

Sharing is caring!