Saturday, March 27, 2010

10 cents to treasure





It all started when I was redecorating my den and decided some turquoise accents - like some fun vases - would be just the thing. Went on Ebay, but really didn't want to pay the prices I was finding. I have quite the stash of old glass vases, you know the kind you get "free" with the purchase of a dozen roses. Not that I would know, since I don't ever get roses. But that's not because of my husband, it's really because of me. Why, I ask, would you want to spend so much money on something that is going to be dead in a few days? So if you have ever been to a single garage sale in your life, there is one thing you are 99% likely to see. Somewhere at the back of the garage usually, on a table that is easily passed over, is a clustering of glass vases. Usually with the whopping price of 10 cents each. Unless the sellers are from the depression era and think they can actually make some money off of them. Here's to turning 10 cents into a treasure. I just use a little bottle of acrylic paint, and when it has dried, (usually a matter of 30 seconds) I paint a silver glaze over the whole vase, and then spray it with clear varnish. Here are a few I have done. The turquoise and brown combos have sold great on Ebay, by the way! But they are a pain to ship...

Note: the brown vase with teal dots was milkglass. I dipped my finger into the teal paint and just dabbed it over each "bump".

4 comments:

  1. Hey dear! This is so neat and wonderful! Wow. You are one of those amazing people that gets more done in 5 minutes than I do in a day:) Thank you for sharing your wonderful ideas. I love doing a lot of the same things. It is amazing how things can change with some elbow grease!! Keep up the great blog. Thank YOU! Darla

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  2. I'm so impressed with this technique. I always thought you had to use special paint to paint on glass. Did you need a primer or anything special to make the paint adhere? Does the paint chip off the glass easily? Thanks for inspiring. I've been looking to so something different for my son's room but can't find anything to match his color. This would be awesome to experiment with. Thanks.

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  3. I spray paint a lot of the "milk glass" and that seems to adhere fine, but the clear glass that I paint acrylic on does scratch rather easily! I keep mine for displaying on shelves, but don't use them for actual flower arrangements usually because of this! But I sure love how they look! If you're not rough on your stuff, it'll be fine. :) Thanks for the sweet comments!

    p.s. I wonder if Wil Bond would work as a good "primer"? Haven't painted any vases in a while, but maybe I'll try that next time and see how it does! I bet it would work great since it's a "liquid sand paper". I love how it makes furniture almost unscratchable!!

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  4. Cool idea!! I love to remake things I've found at garage sales and thrift stores, too! :)

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