Today I’m sharing a trick I learned for creating a beautiful matte black finish on ceramic pieces. Here’s my DIY matte black ceramic vase!
I’ve been seeing these beautiful, earthy matte black vases being used by some of my favourite designers lately and it’s one trend that I think is really kind of fun. Using a matte black vase for greenery, branches, or flowers creates such a neat moody fall vibe almost instantly in any space. I do think that this is probably not going to be a trend that lasts forever, but it’s a fun one to play around with for sure, especially at this time of year. I had a very specific idea in mind of what I wanted for a shoot we did of a really beautiful, modern kitchen recently so I decided to make it myself! Here’s my DIY Matte Black Ceramic Vase.
Supplies Needed to Create a DIY Matte Black Ceramic Vase
- A glass or ceramic vase to paint
- Rustoleum “High Heat” flat black paint
- Black chalkboard paint
- A small 3/4″-ish paint brush
The shape of vase that you choose for this project will obviously affect your final result. I chose this IKEA vase that I had that had a nice, organic shape to it that made it almost look hand-made and that worked really well. I loved this vase when it was white with blue stripes, but I found myself not using it very often, so I decided that this might be a good use for it. It turned out to be exactly what I had in mind when it was finished.
The “High Heat” paint is absolutely essential to this project because the finish on this paint is completely flat, no sheen whatsoever, and that’s what really makes this look work.
How to Create a Matte Black Finish on Your Vase
I played around with a few different techniques and actually repainted my vase a few times before I landed on something that gave me the look I was going for.
Start out by spray painting your vase with two thin coats of the high heat paint, letting it dry for 10 minutes between coats.
Next, bring your vase inside and dry brush a small amount of the chalkboard paint onto your vase, using horizontal strokes here and there. You just want to create a very subtle amount of texture. Like me, you probably always thought that chalkboard paint was super flat, but when you start to paint it over the high heat paint, you’ll see that it actually has a very subtle sheen to it and this just creates the tiniest bit of texture and movement on the surface of the vase.
I had originally dry-brushed on some white paint, but I ended up just painting over that because the effect wasn’t subtle enough. I just wanted something that would catch the light the tiniest bit and give the vase more of a hand-crafted look.
And here’s how my vase turned out!
You’ll have to pop over to our photography business Instagram page to see the rest of this beautiful kitchen by local cabinet company Oak Barrel Cabinets. It’s pretty spectacular, with navy blue cabinets, the skinniest island I’ve ever seen, fish scale style tiles, and a huge double fridge. You can find our Instagram here: Art & Spaces Photography.
This is definitely a great way to bring new life to an old vase!
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.