DIY- TRASH TO TERRACOTTA

January 5, 2021

Written by oluwakemiagbato

I can’t get enough of terracotta decor. Its mottled look gives a warm and rustic nod to any space being styled. If you’re like me, you may want more than one piece and that can get expensive. So I found a cheap way to make some terracotta objects with paint and baking powder. I discovered this trash to terracotta technique on the Home is with them blog

In this tutorial I will teach you how to take old glass or ceramic objects and turn them in to terracotta pieces you will love. We will go from trash to terracotta! Keep reading to see how to go about it.

What you need

Paint. In this tutorial I use the Reeve’s gouache paint. I used the same in my last tutorial. You can use acrylic paint or even emulsion paint for walls
Paint brushes. a medium and small brush
Baking powder
Old glassware or ceramic decor
Bowls for mixing
An optional old toothbrush

Instructions

Prep the old glassware. Clean off any dust or lint just to give your paint a clean surface to adhere to.

2.Mix the paint. Put half a teaspoon of baking powder into the paint and stir till the paint is fluffy. For larger quantities of paint you can mix with a three parts paint one part baking powder ratio.

Paint and baking powder — Processed with VSCO with c1 preset

paint mixed with baking powder — Processed with VSCO with c1 preset

3. It’s time to paint. For a smooth even finish, paint in a downward direction. However if you’d like to have a more textured look: painting in various directions will cause textures and cracks that will add visual interest. View the brown bowl below.

Here is how to upcycle your old glassware. Click to Tweet

PS- if your object has an opening, you should to paint one or two inches in to it. This is to hide the glass or ceramic from being seen when the object is viewed from an angle

4. Let it dry. You may need more than one coat especially on glass objects. Let it dry completely before applying another coat. I let mine dry for about 15 hours outside before applying an extra coat.

5. Decorate. This is totally optional. However I decided to use my finger to brush white paint on to the brown bowl to add even more interest. I also used an old toothbrush to flick blue paint on the white jar. I let that dry for another few hours

This is how they turned out.

And there you have it! Terracotta decor on a budget. You can use these to style shelves, consoles and tables. I put some flowers in to mine. I’m so excited to style my shelves with them.

Ugly glassware to terracotta decor. Here is how I did it. Click to Tweet