Vase | Operation Home

The other morning I woke up to a super sweet surprise. Flowers from the hubs. We don’t usually make a big deal of traditional holidays like Valentine’s Day, but he’s great at bringing home “just because” flowers every so often. Those are my favorite kind of flowers, anyways.

I forgot to take a before shot (I know, wake up, newbie blogger!! Geez.), but it was a cheerful mixed bouquet of lilies and roses. I decided to split the bouquet to share the pretty amongst the house. So, I started walking around in search of vases. Then, I remembered these….

They’re leftover Belgian beer bottles, the contents of which Joey enjoyed a few years ago. I really liked the bottles, so I washed them out and saved them. And then I forgot about them. Until this day, anyways. I thought the lilies might look cool in them. So, I simply cut each stem down a bit, filled the bottles with water and stuck one lily stalk into each vase. ….And Im pretty sure they rock my world.

The contrast of earthy, masculine bottles with delicate, girly pink flowers make me smile.

So, with the lilies happy in their new homes, I needed a plan for the roses. There were only four blooms, so I wanted something somewhat small so the vase wouldn’t look too empty. I ended up using the base of a stainless steel martini shaker. Since we do use the shaker upon occasion, I decided to line it with a plastic solo cup.

I filled it with water, cut down the roses and stuck them in there. I stacked the arrangement on top of two wooden carved bowls to give it a bit more presence. And here they are, chillin’ out in our kitchen….

So, there you have colorful flowers and makeshift vases. I love how they cheer up the space and add color and texture. Fun, fun, fun. 🙂

A while back, while I was at Marshalls, I found this little guy on clearance for $4. (Sorry for the pic… I forgot to snap a before pic and this was all I could find. Newbie move.). The flowers that resemble bed head were not included. Sadly, they were my doing. Ill be honest, he’s not my typical style but he was cute and cheap so I rescued him and named him Larry.

For a while, Larry lived on our DIYed bathroom shelves (stay tuned for those), but then I decided that I actually wanted to use him. You see, as indicated by his luscious locks of flowing, ‘er spikey, flowers, Larry is not only a friend, he’s a vase. I know. I wanna meet the genius who came up with that, too.

It’s hard to tell from the photo, but he is not solid green. He’s green with brown in the crevices. Not bad, but again, not really our style. He was a bit of a country owl, if you will.

So, I cleaned him really well with soap and water, wiped him down with white vinegar to remove any remaining greasiness, and let him dry thoroughly. Then, I whipped out my paint + primer spray paint. This was the Krylon Dual in Gloss white. I gave him several light coats, (as below) leaving 5-10 minutes of dry time between each.

First coat:

Second coat:

Third coat:

And this is what I was left with…..

Hello friend.

I always let spray-painted items sit untouched for at least a day or two before using them to allow them to cure. Nothing is more frustrating than spending time making something look pretty, only to smudge it up by using it too early.

As an added note, one tip that I learned the hard way is to ALWAYS read the directions on the can when it comes to any paint, stain, lacquer or spray paint. Believe me. This concept has taken me YEARS to figure out. The Krylon Dual spray paint that I used for this project recommends painting within two hours OR after 48 hours. So, if you miss your two hour window, you MUST wait 2 days. I learned (after NOT reading the directions) that if you paint within this window, the paint has dried too much, but not enough. So, the layers you’ve already painted will buckle up and wrinkle when they come into contact with wet paint. This was not the look I was going for. Ugly-cry face *may* have made an appearance that day.

As for where Larry lives for now….