I love everything old, rusty, chippy, and even dirty. I love the history of each piece. I love stuff just pulled from a barn after tons of years have passed. If you don't maybe you should stop reading right here.
I recently came around a stash of flower buckets. Although they were new I thought they had potential. I bought a bunch for my Project Shop Booth at Plaza Antiques & Collectibles Mall in Lincoln Park, MI. In my booth, I sell everything you need for your DIY projects and even project pieces for you to get started. I also sell DIY Paint, Paint Pixie Brushes and JRV Stencils, vintage hardware, salvage and more. If you see something cute on Pinterest and you need a few more things I will probably have what you need. My goal of my Project Shop Booth is not only to provide you with supplies that you need but with ideas of what you can make with what I sell. All around the booth you will see finished projects right above the supplies to give you ideas.
Since I was going to add these flower buckets to the booth I needed to create something cool from one of them as a sample. I decided to paint one with DIY Paint. DIY Paint is an all-natural, heavily pigmented clay-based paint. That means it has no fumes, it is safe to use indoors, needs fewer coats of paint for coverage, and will stick to almost anything. (Read my blog post Why I Love DIY Paint to find out more.)
I used DIY Paint in Fancy Farmgirl and painted it directly on the surface. The first coat over metal is never pretty. Don't worry if you have streaks. It will get better, I promise. It just provides a surface for the second coat to stick to. After the second coat was dry I decided to apply a part of my Fresh Cut Flowers JRV Stencil to it. I taped down the stencil using a blue painters table and used my JRV Stencil brush to apply Vintage Linen DIY Paint. (I love my JRV stencils and brush. Not a fan of stencils? Check out How to Be an A+ Stenciler.) I decided since the flower bucket was narrow I would only use a part of the stencil and I covered the part I was not using with blue tape to avoid accidentally stenciling through on that part. (One stencil can be used for so many different projects if you just use a part of it.) After the paint dried I decided I wanted the bucket to look old. I achieved this by using DIY Paint dark wax. Usually, it is encouraged that you apply a coat of clear wax first so when you apply the dark wax you can have more control and are more able to wipe back the dark if it is too much. I wanted this looking really old so I skipped that step and went right to dark wax. I also used a paper towel instead of a soft lint-free rag to wipe back the dark wax as I worked. Since the paper towel was rough it scratched away some of the paint while it removed the dark wax. I had hoped this would happen and it really gave me the old, worn, dirty look I was going for.
After the wax was dry I buffed it with a lint-free cloth and added flowers. I love how this turned out. If you want to make your own stop by my Project Shop Booth to get your own flower bucket while they last.
