Shabby Chic Painted Can

Today we’re going to make one of my favorite simple crafts, shabby chic cans. There are various ways to upgrade a can to make it shabby chic, but this one involves just hot glue casts and paint. Part of the fun here is that you can use the same method to dress up other containers, such as plastic buckets. The finished cans can be used in a variety of ways, as vases for dried or artificial flowers, as pencil holders, as small waste baskets, or simply as decorations. 

You will need: 

The first step is to create your glue castings. Decide what you want and make them. You may change your mind about what you want once you start arranging the shapes on your can. For more information about casting with hot glue, see this post. Arrange your shapes and glue them in place. I decided to have groups of three, one running horizontally, the other vertically. 

Things to notice: 

Now, things get messy. I want a black under-layer for my can. You may decide you don’t, or that you want another color. If you want to make the roses seem like they’re part of the can, you could paint them with metallic silver paint and leave the can itself unpainted. You may need two coats of black. Allow the paint to dry between coats, and before painting on the white paint. If you do have a black under-layer, it is important that it is good and thick. 

Note the middle and right photos. The middle photo shows a can without the black under-layer. The next photo shows a can with the black under-layer and the can without the under-layer. 

By contrast, we want the white layer to be less thick, even sort of distressed, to give that shabby chic look. Be careful not to overload your brush. Depending on your taste, you may want to make the paint extra thick on the roses or let their texture create gaps in the paint. You could try other colors instead of white, such as a light pink or blue. 


Pin to pinterest!

Once the final coat of paint is dry, you are done! Put your beautiful new decoration to good use!