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Fall Home Decor: DIY Textured Vase with Paint & Baking Soda

This was a fun and easy DIY project perfect for Fall Home Decor; these DIY textured vases were made with a paint and baking soda mixture applied to some thrift store and dollar store vases.

I’m really excited about this project.  Have you noticed all of the textured vases floating around on the web and in our favourite home decor stores? This fall they seem to be THE. THING. And as gorgeous as they are, they can pack a hefty price tag. Especially when you consider that the shapes of them are often very traditional. SO…. I decided to give this DIY a try myself and have a few tips and tweaks for you on how to get the perfect finish for a DIY textured vase using just paint and baking soda. I think you are going to love this fun project right in time for the fall decor season!

Easy DIY Textured Vase Tutorial graphic.

To make these, I first tried out the process on a simple glass vase that I had floating around in my craft closet that I had picked up at the dollar store last summer when I shared my DIY faux cane vase. I wasn’t sure how well it would turn out, so I wanted to experiment first before going out and finding other kinds of vases to use.

Well, low and behold, it worked! I was so thrilled with the results that I popped to our local Salvation Army and found three other vases to do the same process on. I LOVE how they turned out, and even better, I used paint I had on hand and a bit of baking soda. SO CHEAP!

Blue/grey textured bases with wheat grass.

And, I love how the colour ties in with our kitchen island, because I used some paint I had bought to paint the feature wall in our powder room (soon to be revealed) that is the same Knoxville Gray as our island. You can get a glimpse of our new kitchen in this post all about our vinyl plank flooring. 

One caveat: I would not put water against the paint finish, so if you want to use them for flowers with water, do not paint the full inside of the vase. I don’t think latex paint and baking soda would hold up well as a finish against a water filled vase.

If you want to try this at home, you need:

  • old vases – I found that the fluted, more traditional lines worked better than the solid cylinder shape of my dollar store vase
  • a piece of cardboard or dropcloth to protect your work surface
  • 1 cup of latex paint (just use leftovers from a room or another project!)
  • 1/2 cup baking soda
  • old container to mix it in
  • paint brush
  • stippling/stencil brush with flat end
  • measuring cups
  • spoon for mixing
  • a hairdryer if you’re impatient (like I am!)
  • potentially – a second colour of paint (like white) or a lighter tint or darker tone of your original paint to add depth

I’ve created a little video of the process, and you can read below for the step by step instructions…

I took my process pictures when I did this on my cylinder dollar store vase, which is by far the least of my favourite finished products. Nevertheless, you will get the idea of how to do this, even if the vase doesn’t quite have the right shape for this project.

Baking soda is beside a can of paint.

Begin by mixing 1 cup of the latex paint with 1/2 cup of baking soda.

Mixing the paint with the baking soda.

Apply the first coat to your vase and allow to dry until slightly tacky. It will dry faster than normal because of the baking soda. I used a hairdryer to speed up the process. You should keep your paint covered while not using it, and wrap your brush in plastic wrap, or it will dry out on you quickly.

Applying the paint to the glass vase.

After it’s a bit tacky, apply a second coat. If it starts to pull off the paint a bit, or move it around and clump it up, that is okay – the goal here is to create texture.  It should look pretty thick and gloppy on, and is likely a bit shiny, but the finish product once dry will be really matte.

The painted vases.

Leave it for a few more minutes, then go back in with more paint and stipple it on with a stencil brush. That means you are using the blunt end of the brush and tapping the paint directly against the vase, creating a rough textured finish with it.

Using a stipple brush on the vase.

Work your way around the whole vase…

The stippled vase.

When my youngest son asked me “why I had painted the paint can”, I knew this shape of vase was not really working for this project. 😳😆 It was hard to see the depth of the texture on the cylindrical vase. I tried to remedy it by adding some depth by dry brushing on some latex white paint I had, and it did help, but it still wasn’t exactly what I was after…

Applying a bit of white paint to the vase.

You could definitely dry-brush on paint to add extra dimension, even on the more traditionally shaped vases. I’ve seen a lot in stores that have more then one colour, and they seem to have a dry-brushed kind of finish. That just means that you wipe over it with a basically dry brush that only has the tiniest amount of paint on it. I lightly dipped my brush in white paint, and then wiped it off pretty much completely on the cardboard, then applied it to the vase where it highlighted the textured areas.

The textured vase beside wooden beads.

But… because the technique had worked super well, I decided to try it on some different vase shapes. So I popped to the thrift store and grabbed some with more traditional vase-y lines (is that a real word?).

Three glass vases.

These were only a few bucks each and would have been even cheaper if I’d been garage sailing for them, but they turned out much cuter than the cylindrical vase from the dollar store did. I simply repeated the process I shared above…

Painting one of the vases.

Voila!

Three vases on the table.

The textured vase on the table.

Books, wooden beads and vases.

Wheatgrass in the vase.

Up close shot of the vase.

I LOVE them!

Here they are on my warm, earthy rustic fall mantel…

A corn husk pumpkin beside corn.

Acorn garland on the fireplace.

I can’t wait to start styling our new home for fall, now, and I’m looking forward to sharing all the posts with you over the next few weeks.

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Super Thrifty DIY Textured Vases poster.

 

This week I’m joining some of my talented blogging friends for the Fall Seasonal Simplicity Series. Today we are sharing our Fall DIY and Craft ideas with you! Be sure to check out all of the beautiful inspiration by visiting the links under the images below.

DIY Textured Vase at The Happy Housie

DIY Fall Frame Wreath at Confessions of a Serial DIYer

Dried Floral Cloche at Deeply Southern Home

Fall Wreath How-to at Hallstrom Home

Fall Dried Flower Arrangement at Modern Glam

Elevated Toilet Paper Pumpkins Free Craft at Tatertots and Jello

DIY Inexpensive Fall Wreath at The Happy Happy Nester

How to Make a Fall Wreath at A Pretty Life

Air Dry Clay Leaf Twinkle Lights at Clean & Scentsible

Embroidery Insects at Life is a Party

Dried Flowers for Fall at Lemon Thistle

DIY Feather Wreath at Dans le Lakehouse

DIY Fall Wreath Tutorial at She Gave it a Go

How to Make a Succulent Table Runner at My Sweet Savannah

DIY Fall Harvest Nut Wreath at Sincerely, Marie Designs

DIY Fall Cutting Board with a Cricut at The DIY Mommy

 

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16 Fab Fall DIYs

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14 Comments

  1. I love these vases. I would like to do the same and wonder if the spray paint I have would work. What is the purpose of the baking soda.
    Thanks for all your beautiful ideas.

    1. Hi Debra,
      Spray paint would definitely work for changing the colour, but the baking soda was used to make the paint thicker which is how I added the texture. After a few coats with it, there was a thicker layer on there and then the stippling on with the stencil brush is really what helped to add texture. I think I will upload a video to this post so that it is easier to see how that works.
      Krista

  2. These turned out great, Krista! You’d never know what’s really underneath!! I popped over to your new kitchen too…dreamy! Reminds me a bit of your lake house kitchen…it has a similar layout. Thanks for hosting this fun tour, my friend! XOXO

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