Easy, DIY Dipped Vases

Howdy, folks! I hope everybody is having a fantastic week so far. Last weekend, I got a little kick in the bootie out of nowhere to get some projects started. It’s funny how that happens. After refinishing my little mid-century table TWICE, you’d think I’d wanna take a break from refinishing.  But, alas, this is what I found myself doing for a large part of Sunday… After clearing out the garage and locating the old table that I’m wanting to bring into my craft room, I began stripping that sucker of the layers upon layers of paint it was sporting.  And it’s taking a while. So, while I’m getting ‘er done, I thought I’d refresh my creativity by focusing on a few smaller, fun, crafty-type projects to break up the monotony of scraping (and scraping).

This project is simple, easy and cheap. Ya know those glass cylinders that somehow end up accumulating outta nowhere?

Well, I’ve got a ton. Especially the smaller ones as we used them in the centerpieces at our wedding (*cough!sixyearsago*).

Well, I was on the hunt for a new centerpiece for our table and decided to jazz a few of them up for just this purpose. I wanted to do something simple and reversible.  I decided to use the navy enamel paint that I’d used on the walls in Lucas’s room since I already had it on hand (It’s a Clark & Kensington oops paint that I got on clearance).  After washing and drying the vases well, I simply dipped the top of the vases into the gallon of paint…

… And set them to dry.   After a few hours, I went to go check on them and…..

Wellllllllllll….. While I’d wanted to achieve a somewhat imperfect look, this was a little out of hand with the drips.  Yeah. Littlebit.  And you can see the little smudges where Lucas had tried to “help” me.  Poor guy.  He had the best of intentions.  Now, I really think this would be a terrific look for a Halloween centerpiece, especially if you used red or black paint.  I, however, did not want a spooky vibe (yet), so I decided to start over.

This right here is a major perk of using latex enamel paint on glass….

It peels off in one piece. So, if you mess up, no big. Or if you wanted to, say, throw a dinner party with a particular color scheme, you could dip the vases in your color of choice and then be able to reuse the vases again later for a different event or display.

The second time around, I simply dipped the glasses the same way as before, but I held them upside down for much longer and kind of shook off the excess paint with a spiral motion.  I also kept an eye on them as they dried and if I noticed too much of a drip happening, I’d simply turn them upside down for a few moments to redistribute the paint up higher. This was the perfect recipe for the neater, somewhat organic look I was going for…

At this point, I wanted to add a little bling. So, I busted out the gold craft paint and mixed a few different shades to create the color I was going for on a disposable plate…

Then, I dipped the rim of the vases in the gold paint….

Which left this….

I added some greenery clipped from the back yard, and…

And there you have it!   A super simple centerpiece on the cheap!  I love the simplicity of it, but that the little gold rims really add some fun interest.  And now I just wanna play and jazz up all of our glass cylinders! #createdamonster

So, what’s your favorite way to jazz up a boring vase?

Linked up at: Tatertots & Jello
 

TDC Before and After
TDC Before and After
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9 thoughts on “Easy, DIY Dipped Vases

  1. Ohhhh Christina I love these! We all have projects that don’t go they way we want the first time around but I’m glad you started over because these were well worth it. That touch of gold is absolutely perfect!

    • Thanks, Bre! Lately, I’ve been pretty much expecting stuff to go wrong the first time! Haha! Luckily, I’m hard-headed and kind of actually enjoy the problem-solving part of it, so it all works out! 🙂

  2. These are awesome!! I LOVE plain clear cylinder vases. Right now we have two filled with wine corks that flank each side of our TV in our TV room. I have another that has sea shells and pine cones at the bottom and dried bamboo stuck in it. Since we just came back from Cape Cod and I had a pretty healthy collection of sea shells I filled my last clear vase with all the shells and it’s decorating my bookcase right now. 😀 I love the idea of painting the tops AND especially love that the paint comes right off! The drippy look is definitely a cool idea for Halloween…I guess I’ll be on the hunt for more clear vases so I can get that done soon!

    • Thanks, Michelle! I was so in the mood for a project that met just that description… Easy, quick with big impact! After all the more labor intensive furniture projects of late, I needed a creativity refresher for sure!! 🙂

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