2015 #3 Repurposed Vase {by Wanda Hentges}

2015 Theme 3:  Paint

Hi everyone!!  Wanda here this evening with a post using the new Eclectica³ Limited Edition Set 3 paints.  I love these colors!!!  I'm using the Fresco Finish paints for the first time on glass to repurpose an empty flower jar into a vase with flowers to brighten these winter days. 

I started with an empty Prima Flowers Jar like the one below that still has some flowers in it. I removed the label (it wasn't hard to peel off) and lid from the jar and cleaned it very well.  I mixed caribbean sea with satin glaze and sponged it all over the outside of the jar.  After that was dry, I stamped with budding branch from ELB15 with Archival Ink aquamarine randomly around the jar drying each stamping as I went otherwise I know I would have smeared them. Next I stamped part of the dandelion head (ELB15) with bougainvillea paint around the bottom and finally I stamped the little group of 3 dotted circles (ELB15) with snowflake paint.  

I painted a scrap of copy paper with banana, dried it, stamped the quote (ELB06) with Archival Ink jet black, dried it and cut the words out.  They are glued to the jar with matte glaze.  Finally I decided to gloss things up by giving the jar 2 coats of gloss glaze allowing the glaze to dry between coats.  The twine wrapped around the top was white and I colored it using banana paint and water.  

For the flowers, to keep the stamping crisp I painted (banana, tangerine, bougainvillea) the smoothy card first and then stamped the flowers.  I created them in groups of 2 for stacking and I wanted 3 flowers. Using small finger dabbers made painting in circles easy starting with the center and working out changing the line-up of colors for each flower.  After drying the paint I stamped the flower (ELB16) with Archival Ink jet black and dried it.  I lightly stenciled with paint (banana, snowflake, bougainvillea) through sequin waste to get the circles pattern.  Finally I cut out each flower.

Here they are cut out and just laying stacked. 

For the stems I used 24 gauge craft wire.  I took enough to fold the wire in half and twist it. After twisting the wire, I wrapped tissue tape around it and then painted it.  I mixed caribbean sea and banana to get a really pretty bright green.  

I painted the back of each flower with banana and also three 1 1/4" punched circles of smoothy card.  I put each set of flowers together with a brad that I had painted with banana. The prongs were too long so I just cut them off, used a small hammer to get the prongs nice and flat and glued on the stem and painted circle with matte gel medium.

I bent each stem to create a leaf as shown.  I thought the 24 gauge wire would be heavy enough since I was twisting it but I was wrong, the flowers wanted to flop.  I took a piece of 20 gauge gold wire and wrapped it around the stem which also held the stem and leaf together.  I was actually glad they weren't heavy enough and needed the extra wire because I really like how it looks!!!  

I decided to added some Treasure Gold brass to the top of the brads to give a little more metallic to go with the gold wire.  I put some dried beans (I thought I had some glass pebbles but couldn't find them) in the jar along with the flowers to help keep them in place.

Here is a picture from the back. 

If you haven't painted on glass yet, you should give it a try, it worked really well.  If I wasn't careful (I have long, hard finger nails) the paint could be scratched off the glass but after the coats of gloss glaze it's very strong.  

Thanks for following along!!!!  


Wanda Hentges
Blog - Art By Wanda
Twitter - @WandaHentges

What a neat idea. Doesn't the paint go onto glass so well! Honestly, its sticks to anything that stuff!! Beautiful so bright, fun and cheery! Thanks Wanda for sharing another of your wonderful ideas!

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