Aging Urns

I shared these concrete urns in my mantel makeover post yesterday and want to share with you how I aged them.

I love the detail on them that give them a French country look, but they were just too white.

So what do you do to make them look old and worn over time? You use coffee grounds.

I just placed the urns, one at a time, on some foil and just took some coffee in my hand and rubbed it on the urn in circles. I continued to do that until the all of the urn was done. Great abrasion for my hands.

I rubbed off the excess and was left with this. Now they look old.

                                     before                                                                              after

Of course I could not leave them alone. After studying the inspiration picture of the urns I copied again I noticed they were a darker gray green color. So out came some Annie Sloan chalk paints and some craft paint.

First thing I did was paint the raised garland with gold craft paint.

To get the aged look I mixed a tiny amount of Annie Sloan chalk paint in the color Graphite with water to do a wash all over the urn. I did a small area at a time and dabbed some back off with a paper towel. Then I mixed Chateau Gray, which has a lot of green in it, with water and just dabbed it more at the bottom and on some of the raised garland areas. 

Here you can see the differences.

Now they are more of an aged color. So I could have skipped the coffee grounds step since I ended up painting them anyway. 

Learn as you go, I say.

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