How To Change a Flower's Color

Did you know that you can change the color of flowers, real or

fake by using spray paint? 

For real flowers, the product I like is Design Master Colortool.

This is not an advertisement...it is just a good product. 

You can get this paint at Michael's and Walmart. 

The color comes out in a fine mist and gives you control of

how much or little color you want to add to the flower. 

For a wedding I was helping with, the bride wanted pink and

white hydrangeas. It was cheaper to get white hydrangeas in

a bulk order and then spray some of them pink. 

To protect the leaves from getting paint on them, you can put

a paper towel over them. It is a good idea to also cover your 

hand with a plastic glove to keep it from paint also. 

Hold the spray can about 18" away from the flower to keep the

propellant from "freezing" the real flower. 

Ooops! This was probably not 18" away. Luckily it did not harm the flower. 

You can decide how much or little color to add to the flower.

Try to leave some of the original color to add variation, and 

thus reality, to the painted flower. 

It is almost impossible to go from a dark flower to a light

flower so start with a light color and then add color from there.

If you want to see a Design Master You Tube video on more

tips and ideas for spraying real flowers click here. 

You can also use Design Master on fake flowers. I needed blue

flowers to use in a Fourth of July arrangement. About the most

real looking fake blue flowers are hydrangeas, in my opinion.

I am trying to reduce my stash of fake flowers, not add to, so

I tried spraying some of my green hydrangeas to get blue.

Michael's has a good selection of colors and you can use a

coupon (regular $8/can). This is Larkspur Blue. 

 This is one of my fluffier (more expensive) green hydrangeas fixing to get sprayed.

This is some less expensive hydrangeas...the individual flowers were pretty spread out

and didn't look very real. I have found that if you gather the flower heads together and bind

them with floral wire, they look bunchier and more real. 

Here are the green hydrangeas that have been sprayed with

the Larkspur Blue paint gathered together in a vase. 

I think they turned out wonderful but for a Fourth of July

arrangement, I realized I actually wanted them darker than that. 

There was a darker blue Design Master color but I had thought

 it would make them too dark...maybe not. 

 To save a trip back to the craft store I decided to try my local hardware store for a darker blue spray paint.  They did have 

normal dark blue spray paint but again I was a chicken.

I thought this deeper blue glass paint might be more translucent.

 This is Krylon Sea Glass spray paint in Cornflower. 

I did not try to completely cover the colors the flowers already 

had but I was pretty happy with the additional darker blue. 

Just for fun I tried it on a pink hydrangea...I liked that too. 

Some of my red fake flowers were looking kinda faded so 

I did get some cheap regular red spray paint to try on them. 

Here is a comparison of before and after with the red paint.

The flower on the left got a light coating of red spray paint

on the petals. I tried to preserve the details in the center. 

Here's how the Fourth of July arrangement came together...

My container is an old wheelbarrow that a neighbor of mine

was throwing away. I tried rehabbing it with paint and glue.
If you would like to see the rehab process click here. 

The elements of the arrangement are the newly blue hydrangeas,

white flowers (as is), red flowers (some refreshed) and greenery.

(Sorry about these fuzzy pictures. My camera lens kept fogging up from the humidity!)

To keep the fake flowers standing up my idea had been to put

spray foam into used plastic garden flower containers. 

The only container with dried spray foam that worked was the

large one with the stable base. The smaller ones did not work

 well. They just flopped over with any weight. Live and learn.

Instead of scattering the three colors of flowers like confetti

in the arrangement, I did more of a color blocking method.

The blue flowers mostly had short stems so they went low

in the arrangement. Then I put the white and the red flowers 

on different sides of the wheelbarrow bed. 

Keep the idea in mind that you can change real and fake 

flower's colors in case the need arises for future holidays,

home decorating or parties. It is easy and fun. 

Here is a good pinnable image if you want to save this
blog post to Pinterest for future reference:

Summer Home Tour 2018

Thanks for coming to tour my home with my Summer decorations

(finally) displayed. I've made and painted many of the items so I

will include highlighted text that takes you to the tutorials so you

can make similar items for your home if you would like.

We're friends so come on in the back entrance.

As you enter the carport area there is a baker's rack with

my blue bottle collection topped with shells.

Just a dot of hot glue holds the shell on the bottle's opening

then it is easy to pop off at the end of Summer. 

The back door area has more shells.

New galvanized olive buckets have been painted to look

old (tutorial here). I'm pretending that the buckets are holding

burlap bags full of shells from the ocean. 

In reality, most of the bucket is full of crumpled newspaper and

plastic bags. The burlap is hiding the stuffing so you can't see

it through the holes. Then only the very top layer is shells. 

The basket hanging on the back door has shells in it too.

To fool the eye, a piece of foam core was cut to fit the basket

then wrapped in burlap to hide it through the basket's weave.

Then shells were hot glued on to the top edge of the foam core.

If you would like to see more details on how these back entrance

shell decorating projects (and more from inside the house) were done, please click over to "Secrets of Decorating With Shells" post.

Come on in to the kitchen dining area.

I just love me some shells. Most of them have come from

the bags you can buy at the craft stores (and use a coupon to

get them for even less).

Now we will move from the kitchen dining area to the more 

formal dining area. If we had come in the house through the

front door, this room also acts like a foyer too.

(I moved one of the chairs so you could see the table better)

A large urn holds shells and has shells hot glued on it.

I got tired of all the dark wood furniture in this room and got

up enough nerve to paint this dresser/display piece with

two shades of chalk paint (for tutorial click here).

It is an older piece with wavy glass so I'm going to open the

doors so you can see part of my coral and sea fan collection better. 

(Excuse the mess in the bottom)

The wave coral reproduction came from Target. 

The faux corals were made from items in the floral section

of craft stores (coral tutorial here). The faux sea fans were

made from cedar clippings (sea fan tutorial here). 

Also in the dining room/foyer is a buffet.

For summer it has a shell motif also.

My "beach boy" stands on a skirted pedestal between the dining

room and the living room. I found this funky "ribbon" at 

Hobby Lobby. It reminded me of a fishing net.

The last room on the tour is the living room. 

The coffee table holds a bowl of pretty Summer items.

I like to change out these pillow coverings seasonally.

For Summer I fell in love with this octopus print fabric.

(turkish corner pillow tutorial here).

I also like to change out the picture over the mantel seasonally.

It is not expensive to have different artwork during the year

because I just get art prints and use a technique to make them

look similar to a painting (from print to painting tutorial here).

The wood pilings on the end of the mantel are actually pool

noodles wrapped in wood-look contact paper. A diluted coat of

paint gives them that whitewashed look.

(faux wood piling tutorial here)

Bookcases on either side of the mantel hold more Summer items.

The seahorse, faux turtle shell and octopus on this bookcase

were not colors that I liked. I painted them with a DIY chalk

paint. (small batch custom color chalk paint tutorial here)

(Sea fan tutorial here)  (Faux coral tutorial here)

I used the more colorful items in the double bookcase.

The buoys on the top shelf had a color change to make them

look older (tutorial here). I've tried several times to make glass

fishing floats. To me they never look as good as the ones you 

can purchase in stores but I use them anyway.

Buoys, mirror, shell vase all painted with DIY chalk paint.

This mirrored console holds our radio and CD player.

Over the console are two frames with chicken wire that

are easy to change seasonally. (framed chicken wire tutorial).

These are two Summer sayings that I like:

I tried to make these saying boards look similar to the pilings

on the mantel so I covered foam board with the wood-look

contact paper to write on. I might have used too much water to

dilute the paint (to give it a whitewashed look) but then I 

liked the way it beaded up on the contact paper so I left it. 

Thanks again for visiting!!!

Here's a good "pinnable" image if you want to come again.