How To Change The Color of Faux Succulents

Did you know that you can change the color of faux succulents?

Succulents are so amazing that they look almost "other worldly"

or even not real...but I touch them and discover, yes they ARE

real. I am not good at keeping any plant alive so usually I 

like to buy artificial succulents that LOOK real.

 The plant in the middle is a pot of real succulents I am hoping to keep alive.

The fake succulents on the left are ones that I do like the color of.
I probably got them one at a time using a discount coupon at craft stores. 

 The fake succulents on the right were a great bargain but I don't really like to colors.

Sometimes I come across really inexpensive fake succulents

 that have good shape but are  not a color that my eye is used to

 seeing so it LOOKS fake to me. If this happens to you, now
you can buy the succulent and change its color to what you like.

I couldn't resist buying a bunch of faux succulents marked 

down 80% last year at Michael's even though I was not in

love with the colors. I told myself that somewhere in the world

there are real succulents those colors. I used them in my Autumn

decorating on top of faux pumpkins that I had painted white.

I thought I could learn to like the faux succulents just as they 

were...but I did not. The colors bothered me all season.

Autumn 2017

So this year my painting project was not faux pumpkins but

faux succulents. I tried to "google" how to do it but the only

results I found were how to paint real succulents.

Here are my attempts at changing the colors of some

of my faux succulents...

I've had good luck in the past making my own chalk paint

out of plaster of paris and acrylic paint. (Click here for recipe.)

For some reason, the plaster in the mix makes the paint

stick to almost anything. Since the surface of the faux

succulents is rubbery, I thought the plaster would help.

The plaster is very cheap and can be found at any craft store. 

The dots in the above photo are the bottoms of bottles of acrylic craft paints 

that are candidates to be used on the succulents.

A chalk paint recipe is usually about 1 part plaster to 3 parts

paint then thinned with some water. I started out with about an

 even amount of plaster and paint for this project. 

I didn't totally mix the entire amounts of the three ingredients together on the plate...just pulled a little of each together

 with a wooden skewer and stirred together in the middle. 

What seemed to work best was little bit of plaster, some paint and some water. If I kept the paint fairly thin with water, some of the

color variation from the original faux succulent could show through. That helped the succulent from being just one color. 

I used a regular craft paint brush to put the paint on the leaves.

It seemed to be better to start at the bottom and work my way up.

I thought I was going to like the light green paint best but after

 I had painted a few succulents with it, they seemed a little too

 yellowish. At least I knew I did not want all of them that color.

In the beginning I was painting the back and the front of the

flat succulents. Then I got lazy and told myself the bottoms

would not show so I only painted one side.  Big mistake.

When I was arranging the succulents, the bottoms showed

way more than I thought they would. Paint both sides. 

I added a darker green color the the plate palette for variety.

I actually liked it better. I added some of it to the ends of the

leaves on the ones I had already painted and painted other 
succulents with mostly the darker green. 

I also like purple succulents. The purple that I had

 in my paint stash was not quite right straight out of the bottle.

 At first I added a brown paint to the purple which turned out 

almost pink on the faux succulent...

 not terrible but I wanted a darker purple.

 By adding black paint to the purple, I got a color I liked.

Succulents on the left side of the plate have been painted;

 the right side has not been painted. 

Here are the colors of acrylic paint that I ended up using the

most in painting the succulents...Americana Avocado, Craft

 Smart Spanish Olive, Color Traditions Wrought Iron and Color 

Traditions Pansy Purple. By combining and layering these colors

I was able to get a lot of different looks on the fake succulents. 

 To get ideas on how you want to paint your fake succulents

just "google" images of succulents...so much variety!

You can use faux succulents all year in your decorating so

paint them in colors that appeal to you and enjoy them. 

I hope you are happy with your painted faux succulents at

this point if you have tried this technique. If you don't have

plaster, try painting the faux succulents without it...the 

paint by itself may do just fine in adhering.   

If you think the paint looks kind of "flat" or you want to 

protect the paint, you can paint a clear "satin finish"

sealer on the succulents. Small amounts can be purchased

in the same area as acrylic paints at a craft store. 

Before Sealer                                                                      After Sealer

If you already have some clear wax on hand, an alternative

to the satin sealer is to rub wax on the succulents.

Smash some of the wax with a fork (you can throw away a plastic

one) until it is soft. I thought I would be able to brush the wax

on but rubbing it on the leaves with my fingers was best.

Succulent on the left has wax; one on the right is waiting for it's wax massage. 

On some, but not all, of the waxed succulents whitish spots 

showed up a couple of days later. I think it was due to leaving

too much wax on the leaves. Usually when you wax over chalk

paint to preserve the finish, you go back and buff it down later.

I didn't do that to the faux succulent leaves. 

If the white (on purple above) or yellow (on green above)

 bothers you, here is a fix...

Scraping the white (too much wax? too much plaster?) 

with the tip of a wooden skewer and then buffing the leaves 

with a lint-free cloth helps a lot.

Another trick I tried to speed up the excess wax removal was

to heat the succulent up with a hair dryer first. Stop the heating when you see the wax get shiny then immediately rub it. 

A little bit of the color you painted on might come off but it

just helps the succulent have more depth of color. 

Here's how I used some of my refurbished faux

succulents in decorating for Autumn this year...

If you would like to see more of how I used the painted 
succulents for Fall, click on this link...
Fall Home Tour 2018.

I might have made this painting of faux succulents more 

complicated than it is with the plaster, sealer, wax, etc.

If you want to give this a try and all you have on hand is 
acrylic paint, just try that on a faux succulent to change 
the color...see how it comes out for you!

If you want to see the "how to" of putting faux succulents on

top of faux pumpkins for a carefree Autumn look , please 

click on this post "How to Combine Succulents and Pumpkins".

Here is a good Pinterest image if you would like to

save this idea to one of your boards. 

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.