If you saw last week, I went on a quick thrifting trip to our local Salvation Army and found some really good stuff. I ended up leaving with a beautiful cane stool, some tiny wooden decorative houses, and this perfectly shaped oversized vase!

I’ve been seeing A LOT of intriguing and fun plaster-based DIYs on instagram lately, and I was beyond excited I found this to try out a plaster project with! I think it has the perfect shape and size for it. I’ll walk you through how easy this project was. It probably took me around 2 hours total to complete, including paint-dry time!

What you’ll need:

1. Sand paper
2. Vase…or…lamp base, or bowl, you can do so much with this method!
3. Spray Paint – Primer, and then your actual color for end product
4. Plaster – I got mine on amazon, here
5. Big paint brush or small trowel/joint knife
6. Bowl or old paint can to mix plaster

First up, I washed it with dawn dish soap and dried it the day before, because – GERMS. I then sanded it down with a rough piece of sand paper in order to prep to prime it.

Next, I primed it with a spray on primer. While that dried, I began mixing up my plaster in an old paint bucket. I suggest using something you can throw away and is disposable!

You want your mixture to be the consistency of a thick smoothie.

Working with loose strokes, I began adding my plaster. I made sure to go in every direction for a messy and rugged look. My tips would be to let your brush do short, and then long strokes in every direction possible. If I saw an area that looked too “intentional” I just messed it up more. Just have fun with it! I made sure to do two full coats for a thick and covered vase. The coats dry super quick so this only took about a half hour!

Isn’t this awesome?! I just love how handmade and texturized it is. I think it looks pretty expensive now too.

So now that you plaster is dry, it needs a coat of paint. I decided to just go super cheap and do this matte clamshell color I found at Lowes. It’s an off white which I had in mind.

I also always take a peak at the returned paint section, and I found a great accent color as well for only $1.25! It’s a dark beige I thought would be perfect to basically dry brush all over to add even more depth and dimension to the vase, and also help make it look more old and worn.

Once my base spray paint color was dry (I did two coats), I barely used any on the very tips of the big bristle paintbrush I had, and dry-brushed it all around the vase, especially focusing on the base and the opening.

I was a bit nervous about the peachy-color this had at first, but then when it dried it was giving me clay and more of a brown color and I was super happy with how it turned out!

Alright friends, here is the final product!!!

I love how it turned out! Overall, this entire project cost me under $20! This was such a fun experiment and I’m excited to have now worked with plaster for the first time. I always get really intimidated with new mediums but in the end it always feels good to of learned about a new one.

Have you ever used or worked with plaster? Let me know if you have any questions or need help doing your first plaster DIY! Hope everyone has a great week!