How to Turn the Ugliest Thrift Store Vase into a Beauty with DIY Textured Paint

I'm showing you how easy it is to make your own DIY textured paint using common ingredients at home, and how quick it is to makeover a thrifted vase from ugly to amazing!

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Do you love fast and easy DIYs?

How about ones that cost next to nothing?

Oh good, me too! You're in the right place friend!

I've been super lucky at the thrift stores lately and have found a lot of goodies for my home, like pretty dishes and baskets, and one really ugly vase!

Ready to see it?


Here she is...the ugliest vase I've ever seen! I actually passed by it several times when I was shopping at Goodwill before I even noticed it. That ugly brown paint job wasn't doing it any favors! There was red peeking through, and just weird lumps and bumps here and there.

The one redeeming quality that this vase has going for it is the shape. Well, and the price. It was 50% off orange tag items so I paid only $1.50 for it.

I brought it home to makeover and I whipped up some easy textured paint that helped to cover the flaws and make this vase a beauty!

Before I share this amazing paint technique, don't forget to follow me on InstagramFacebookYouTube and Pinterest, and subscribe to my blog so you can be the first to be notified when I post a new project!

Updating an ugly vase with DIY textured paint

You might have heard of this textured paint technique called trash to terracotta. It was created by Geneva at Collective Gen. She used it to turn vases into realistic looking terracotta using a common household ingredient, baking powder.

You can't mess it up!

This is one of those DIY recipes that is hard to mess up! The original recipe calls for regular latex house paint, the kind you use on your walls.

However, I had a new blue chalk paint (Elegance) from Country Chic that I was wanting to try out, and I'm happy to say that you can create this textured paint using chalk paint too! I have also tested it with regular acrylic craft paints and that works too!

I've also seen DIYers replace the baking powder with baking soda and this also seems to work, although I haven't tried it myself.

Supplies

  • vase (glass, ceramic, etc)
  • paint (latex, acrylic, chalk)
  • baking powder
  • disposable bowl and spoon
  • paint brush (I used my favorite Purdy brush - the shorter handle makes painting furniture and decor so much easier!)


Let's make some textured paint!

The original recipe calls for 1 cup of paint, but I was painting just one vase so I simply added a few tablespoons of paint into a paper bowl. I also squirted a little white acrylic paint because I was worried that the chalk paint alone might produce a textured paint that was too thick to use.

I added a heaping teaspoon of baking powder directly to the bowl and mixed. When you mix the paint and baking powder, there is a cool reaction. The baking powder reacts with the liquid in the paint and puffs up. See the bubbles?


Before painting anything, you do want to be sure it's nice and clean! I like this product for cleaning and prepping any hard surface before paint. I dipped my brush in the textured paint and used broad strokes to paint my cleaned vase. Because the paint is so thick, this step goes really quickly. Goodbye ugly brown vase!



You can either let the paint dry on its own or you can help to speed up the process a little with a heat gun. I knew my painted vase would require a second coat for the best coverage, so I blew it dry and then painted the second coat, again painting in broad vertical strokes.

Note: the paint you use will determine dry time; chalk paint dries the quickest, latex paint the slowest.


You can see a little bit of graininess in my painted vase. I'm guessing that's because I didn't sift the baking powder first. Here in Texas, the humidity causes our powdered spices to clump up and normally I sift everything to break up the clumps. However, I was trying to cover up those lumps and bumps that my vase had from its previous paint job, so I wanted that extra texture.

Designer tip: to get a really smooth result, sift the baking powder before adding it to the paint

The results

Textured paint yields a matte finish, which feels so modern! I set the freshly painted vase on my nightstand and it added a pretty pop of blue to our spring bedroom. Click here to see how I refreshed our bedroom for spring.

It also looks so good in our remodeled sunroom, on my white painted cottage dresser.


The textured paint dries to a matte finish that feels just like terracotta.


The best thing about this DIY textured paint recipe is that you choose the color! Use what you already have or purchase small sample pots of paint from the home improvement store. 

You can completely customize items from the thrift store like I did, or buy glass vases from the dollar store and give them a makeover so they look like ceramic pieces!

I can't wait to paint more vases in different colors!

Pin it to remember!

dresser with plants, books and painted vase

Wanna see even MORE items I've completely transformed with paint?

Click the links below to see the DRAMATIC MAKEOVERS of these dated and tired pieces! And that's not all - see all my furniture makeovers by clicking here









bringing beauty to the ordinary,

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Comments

  1. LOVE IT Looks gorgeous
    Found you on Hometalk Weekend
    Hugs from Australia
    Plenty of time to try it myself now we are in lockdown again!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Dianne, so sorry you're experiencing lockdown again! Stay safe!

      Delete
  2. I LOVE the green-blue glass light hanging above in the second to last photo. Where ever did you find it? NEED!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks so much Bitsie! That was a $9.99 Goodwill find many years ago. It's vintage blue crackle glass with chandelier crystals. I adore it but not sure where you'd find one... maybe Ebay?

      Delete

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