Friday, October 18, 2013

Upcycle a Vase - Budget Friendly!

Hello and welcome!
 
Today I made this beautiful gold and twine vase.
 
Honestly, it started out as a FAIL, but now I'm
happy
happy
happy
with the result. 

twine craft, vase with twine, upcycle project
 
I'm one of those people whose ears turn bright red when they lie, or who rub their noses incessantly if they're stretching the truth. So, I'd feel guilty if I didn't tell you exactly what went down.
 
 Here's the sad truth of how I just HAD TO save a 1$ vase, no matter what.  I hate giving up.
 
I had a clear hurricane vase from the Dollar Store, which I bought sometime last year.  I decided to tape off the top of the vase, and paint the bottom 2/3rds of it gold. I had to paint 4 coats to get a good cover of paint, without streaks. It took a bit of drying time, but it looked great in the end. Well, it looked great until I pulled off the blue tape, and pulled away chunks of the paint.
 
DOH!
 
I even tried to fix the paint by using a small paintbrush. I didn't want to throw the vase away.
(I know, it's ridiculous - the vase cost me a dollar, a year ago!)

 
Determined to save the vase (and my dollar!),  I realized I could use jute. I sat down and wrapped the top with twine, and kept wrapping until the twine covered the messed up paint.
 
All I had to do was wrap the twine, using thin lines of hot glue, little by little. (If you do this, you will notice the glue leaves little strings - just let them dry and they pull right off when you're done.)

 
Wrapping the twine is fairly time consuming, but look how pretty!
Now I need to figure out where to put my vase - and what to put in it.
For now, it's got sticks - I love sticks!

 
I love the gold with the twine.

 
I love that the twine covered up the bad paint.
And I love that the paint covered up the boring vase.
What started out as a loss, ended up a win!

Tell me - do you put time and money into a project just because you refuse to give up?

 

15 comments:

Julie's Lifestyle said...

Hi this vase that you made is so pretty! I saw it on best of the weekend.
Julie at julieslifestyle.blogspot.com

Susan at TheBoredZombie.com said...

win! nice work! No. I've not been that determined to save things. They usually sit around forever in the "round tuit" pile. When I never get around to it, I give it to a local shelter and they love it or take care of it for me. :)

Unknown said...

Thank you guys! I'm glad you stopped by. Julia

Michelle Liew said...

This is beautiful~ And an inexpensive way of decorating!

Kim said...

Very pretty, Julia! Sometimes the most creative projects come out the biggest fails! This looks really great and very high end! :)

Unknown said...

Thank you Michelle and Kim! I'm happy I managed to save it! LOL - it was a close one!

Sarah said...

It's beautiful, definitely worth the save. Way to go the extra mile!

Claire Justine said...

Oh wow it turned out great :)

Thanks for sharing at Creative Mondays...

Allison @ Dream a Little Bigger said...

It turned out so pretty. The gold and twine work really well together. Thanks for sharing at Link It or Lump It!

Jessi @ Practically Functional said...

Turned out great, I love the idea of the metallic and twine together! I featured this on my blog today! I'm just stopping by to pin it and say thanks again for sharing! You can check it out here, and grab a Featured button if you don't already have one: http://practicallyfunctional.com/5-ways-add-metallics-fall-decor/

Unknown said...

Great job! It wasn't a mistake...the case new what it wanted to become all along

Unknown said...

Thank you guys! I am either really cheap, or really determined. Uh, let's go with determined! Julia

House in the Heights said...

It looks awesome! Especially with the sticks! I'm with you on not giving up...I recently spent $36 bucks to save a project that originally cost me $12. But I love the end result....sigh.

Unknown said...

HitH - I will be over to see your $12 or $48 project! :) Julia

Rennata said...

I know this feeling well. I have been cleaning our and getting rid of years of trying to fix it because i do not want to give up. I will say that none of my "saves" looked as good as yours did. You came up with a real winner there