How to update an old vase

We’ve almost lived in this house for a year now and over this time I’ve been trying to add a little decor to it. First thing I did was play around with the books on our Ikea bookshelf. I love organizing the books by colour versus size or topic. Also changing direction of the books - have some upright and others on their side - adds more interest. Also realize that in the living room you don’t have too fit all your books in here. I have a shelf in another room with all my white paper backs.

And as I did with the vase I covered with pennies that I blogged about before, I looked around our house and found this colourful vase that wasn’t being used that I thought would worked in this space. I love coloured stripes but thought it could use an update.

A few years ago I found on the curb these paper back books in Chinese - I have no idea what they are about but the print looks cool so I took them. I used some of the pages to recover the vase. I simply cut the pages into squares - it doesn’t have to be even squares. Then using watered down white glue and a paint brush I glued them on, overlapping the pieces on the vase and over the edges. Then put one coat of the glue over the whole vase to seal. You could use Modge Podge if you’re into that kinda thing but I’m too cheap, so watered down glue worked fine for me And of course you don’t need to use Chinese book pages - any pages would look great or go out and buy a Chinese newspaper if you want that look.

If you want to use the vase for fresh flowers just be careful putting water inside as it’s not water proof. I found a plastic leafy ball from the dollar store that I thought looked pretty fun inside mine so I didn’t have to worry about water ruining the design.

Now look around your house for vases that you can update.