Add Faux Age To White Pots

Wondering how to make white pots look older they are

or just add a little character to them? 

Here are some techniques I tried when when I needed to

unify the colors of some white pots and vases for a mantle.

The two urns on the ends of the mantle already had a nice

faux age look to them when I purchased them from 

Kirklands a few years ago.  

That's a "for real" crack in this one...adds some age, huh? 

The other pots/vases needed to look similar to, but 

not match, the urns.  They all already had a somewhat

white finish on them.  A few were terra cotta, one was 

plastic, one was glass, one was plaster. 

These three were gifts from my sister...

...the others cost $2 each at the most.

The largest vase already had a nice mossy look to it that I 

didn't want to ruin so it just got a dry brush of white watered-

down paint on the high points to lighten it up a little.

The hobnail glass vase was once kind of a purple color.

It had already been subjected to having a not so successful

crackle finish applied to it.

A crackle medium from the craft store is still one of my

favorite ways to add faux age to an item so I tried the

Martha Stewart  "Weather Crackle Effect" on the vase

this time.  Any crackle medium that says something

about "weather" gives you a larger crackle than normal. 

The crackling does better in low humidity too. 

Here is the vase after allowing the crackle medium dry

and then adding an off-white craft paint on top of it.

The saucer of the vase in the photo above also has a

watered-down brown paint brushed on top then wiped off

to age it even more.  The main part of the vase got 

the watered-down brown paint added too later.

Rosemary of VillaBarnes blog does wonderful aging 

paint finishes with gesso.  In an attempt to copy some of

her techniques, I had purchased some gesso. 

Notice the words "economy" and "clearance"?

My gesso doesn't act anything like Rosemary's gesso.

Mine is pretty watery, unfortunately.  I don't think

my bargain was such a bargain. 

For this project, I decided to give the gesso another chance

but this time I was adding some plaster to it to beef it up.

The gesso, plaster and some craft paint were mixed together 

in a bowl and then painted onto the plastic footed urn. 

It wasn't too thick and stuck on the piece really well. 

It also added some texture to the plastic. 

This vase also had the colored gesso/plaster painted on.

The craziest thing that I tried to add age was dirt.

A page in Annie Sloan's book "Creating The French Look"

suggested painting an object with her chalk paint and then 

rubbing some potting soil into the wet paint and the crevices.

Since I already had the gesso and plaster mix handy, I used 

it in place of the chalk paint on a couple of the pieces.
Regular paint might work just as well, too...don't know.
Just paint your color on and immediately add dry potting soil.

After working the dirt into the paint, the main places that it

stuck was the nooks and crannies of the pots' designs.

Everybody's looking more unified at this point:

The next aging technique tried was just watered-down brown

paint brushed on and then wiped off of the high spots. 

These two pots (I think from the Dollar Tree) already had a

somewhat aged look to them that was just emphasized.

Now for a little green paint to replicate moss...

...yikes!  A little green goes a long way...had to call 

in more brown paint, more water, more wiping with a

cotton cloth to get some of that green toned down.

You could leave more green on if you want more of a

mossy look...I just wanted it to be subtle like the urns.

The green "moss" was added to some of the other pieces too. 

Well, here are our shades of white aged pots/vases in

 action and filled with flowers and greenery on the 

Fifty Shades of White Mantle:

Although these pots are painted to look like they aged outside,

I'm not sure they would hold up to outside weather.  

Hopefully these experiments in aging white pots will

come in handy for you some time!

Heather of At the Picket Fence blog wrote a good post 

on ways to age new clay-colored  terra cotta pots 

if you need that info.

I'm sharing this post over at
The Scoop (formerly Cowgirl Up) @ Top This top That
Wow Us Wednesday @ Savvy Southern Style
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