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: 

• Containers: This tutorial is for tin cans, but you can also apply the same process to any other container that can be painted with acrylic paint and glued on with hot glue. You can also purchase various premaide plastic or metal shapes that might work as well. 

• A glue gun

• Hot glue: You can use clear hot glue, black, or white. 

• Molds: I got mine on Amazon. Rose shaped are nice, but any of the following shapes could be very pretty: keys, locks, angels, flourishes, frames. If you don't have molds, you can get a similar, but more subtle effect by drawing flourishes or dots with hot glue directly on your can. 

• Paint: I generally use acrylic. It doesn’t produce fumes; it is readily available at craft stores, and, as long as it hasn’t dried yet, it is water soluble. You will want white and black. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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