Have you ever looked at a piece of decor in your house and thought “I can do something with this and make it look fabulous!”?. I do it all the time!
I love glass vases, but sometimes I just look at them and think – BORING! They’re plain, transparent, they need flair! And, who am I kidding? I’ll find any excise for a DIY project! So I went out and got a couple of spray paints (like one can wasn’t enough!) and went crazy.. See, when I have a project in mind I sometimes don’t read tutorials and I just learn as I go along. So, mistakes were made, I screwed up a perfectly good vase BUT I learned from it. And I’m going to share with you the mistakes I made (so you don’t make them!) and what you need to do to spray paint a vase perfectly.
Spray paint disaster
Meet my first victim (a vase I bought from Ikea a couple of years ago). That is definitely not pretty! Confession – I was impatient. And with spray painting, impatience is your enemy! So I bid adieu to my horrible project, and tried again. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did, so I’m going to tell you how to properly spray paint a vase (or anything else really), without getting drips or worse, having to throw away a perfectly good piece of decor!
- Find the vase (or a piece of decor) you want to spray paint. Make sure to clean it properly and that it’s fully dry.
- Find a place where you want to do your spray paining project and cover the area you will be using. I do my spray painting on the terrace (that way the smell doesn’t go inside), and covered the floor with a sheet I use just for these kinds of projects.
- Shake your spray paint bottle well for about 1 minute. First thing you should do before spraying your vase is to do a test spray on a piece of paper or cardboard (something you don’t mind ruining).
- Once the spray paint is coming out smoothly, STEP BACK from the vase 10″ to 16″ (this instruction is at the back of spray cans, it’s that important!). I repeat, step back!
- Moving your vase back and forth, lightly mist your jar with paint. Do you want your vase to look like the one above? Didn’t think so. Don’t coat it with a huge chunk of paint, as that will result in drips!
- After lightly misting your vase, get up, walk away, make a nice cup of coffee, check your Facebook, etc. Just DO NOT go back for 15 minutes. Then, go back and repeat for as many times as you need to ensure an opaque coating. Just remember to let the spray paint dry between each coating. This takes a little longer, yes. But keep in mind, that’s better then throwing away the vase!
Ready for take two?
MUCH better!
It’s quite an easy way of making something dull look pretty, you just need a little patience!
Check out another Ikea hack here!
