From Old to New

by Estelle

4 Materials

$10

1 Hour

Easy

A quick and easy vase makeover

This vase (some kind of pressed wood) was just sitting in the cupboard. I had no work for it...until this morning. I decided that I needed a 'new' ornament somewhere. It had the inside of a leaf engraved on the one side, but the whole vase was white.

I used a gold acrylic (craft) paint for a shape bigger than the leaf. After it dried I took dark blue acrylic paint (craft) and enhanced the leaf.

I let it dry completely and started to put masking tape all over the vase, in random patterns.

I decided to go with only 3 colours.

GOLD - for the background of the leaf
COBALT BLUE - for blocks and the inside at the top
RAW SIENNA - also for blocks

The WHITE will also be there if you remove the masking tape afterwards, because it was covered by the tape. So ...you put the masking tape where you want to see the base colour of the vase.

This is what the unpainted side looked like with only the masking tape on it.

After painting the inside of the top, I started with the blocks.

As you can see, I made a bit more of the blocks blue than the raw sienna blocks, because of the gold big leaf. I love blue and did not want it to look dull because of too much gold and raw sienna.

Remove the masking tape before the paint dries completely otherwise the tape might remove some of the paint when you pull it off. It happens sometimes when the paint sticks to the side of the tape and it dries there. It sticks to the masking tape when you pull it off, so it might also peel off a piece of the paint.

This is the one side of the vase after I removed the masking tape.

This is what the other side looks like.

After it has dried, a coat of clear varnish can be painted over the whole vase.

If you use oil paint, that might not be necessary, but it's always a good idea to varnish or seal acrylic paint in some way. It keeps it cleaner for longer.

This is the finished product.