Ideas for painting milk cans

Kathy Ayers
by Kathy Ayers
I am looking for ideas for how to decorate with them.
  5 answers
  • Gina Maylone Gina Maylone on Apr 18, 2016
    Depends on what your personal taste is...do the cans have handles on them?
  • Deanie Winter Deanie Winter on Apr 18, 2016
    There are so many ways to decorate them depending on your taste. You can paint them. You can decoupage' and existing pattern cut from paper or even fabric. You can go with a theme or scenery.
  • Elaine Elaine on Apr 18, 2016
    Well, this depends entirely on your taste in decor & artistic talent! Re the latter, if you are artistic (or have a friend who paints) I saw a milk can ages ago that was amazing. The artist loosely divided the milk can into four sections then tole painted (decorative painting technique) the Four seasons of the year. For example, for Spring: a primitive style farmhouse was painted with green grass & a pink Spring flowering tree, perhaps a few lambs behind a fence. For Summer: again, the house could be painted with a tree & kids playing on a swing. For Fall: a red barn surrounded by pumpkins with a scarecrow & then for Winter, paint either a house or barn covered in Snow, some snow covered trees, a sled on the white (of course) lawn. The milk can was done SO well then protected with an outdoor varnish as it was intended for a front porch. (It was also "antiqued" with a darker stain before the varnish was applied.) You can find tons of tole painting/decorative painting ideas on Google. Type in Priscilla Hauser or Ross Stallcup or if you are really new to this, type in Donna Dewberry as her technique is super simple. The milk can, when completed, was far removed from a cutesy, amateur project but was very elegant & expensive looking. Good luck!!
    • See 2 previous
    • Elaine Elaine on Apr 18, 2016
      Liz - I forgot to add, the Four Season scenes weren't huge - in other words, they didn't "fill up" the whole space top to bottom (like some shown on Pinterest) but were smaller; perhaps taking up about 10" of space (top to bottom" - if you know what I mean!
  • Stacy Jones Prest Stacy Jones Prest on Apr 18, 2016
    I painted some I had with matching house paint and then stenciled our address on them in the front door color. Since then, I found a smaller one and painted "welcome" on it. They all sit now on the front porch, so they don't weather as badly that way.