DIY Popular Home Decor || Paper Mache Bowl, Vintage Mortar, Mortar Candle || Easy & Affordable

Hey everyone! Welcome back to my channel. I am back with some more DIYs. I know you all really love them and for today's video I have four very fun and exciting DIYs that are very affordable, they're easy, and they turned out amazing. They look like the real authentic vintage piece. I did share a little hint on Instagram and you were all so excited so it's finally here. I have been thinking about these DIYs for a very long time and kind of planning them out so I decided to finally give them a try and they are just so good. I can't wait for you to see and what kind of inspired me to do this as well is I know a lot of you were upset in my last video with the items that I shared in my haul and saying that they were pricey and I totally understand. Those items I purchased in a span of about seven to eight months and a lot of them were purchased with gift cards. My HomeGood items were gift cards, Mickey and Co items were gift cards, and then the pillow covers were gifted. They did accumulate. I didn't buy them all at once and I don't want you guys to ever think that I'm out of touch. I do share a lot of DIYs here on my channel so I do have other DIY videos with breadboard ideas, with vintage vases. I have lots of DIYs so if you want to check those out I will have them linked down below but I'm going to stop talking now and we can get started with today's video. For the first DIY, we are going to be recreating this stone mortar from Olive Atelier. You can actually find these in lots of different places and they usually range anywhere from $55 to $75 but today we are going to be recreating it for a fraction of that cost. So I headed to Home Depot for some mortar mix. This is the one I usually use but you can find any at Home Depot or Lowe's. I also found these planters on the Walmart website. They do come in a pack of eight for $12 and they are the perfect shape for the mortars. I also grabbed this cup from Target. It was just 50 cents and you also need some WD-40, tape, a cup, and something to mix it with. Since these are planters, they do have holes on the bottom so I used some duct tape that I already had and covered those up. Now for the mortar, it says to mix four parts mix and one part water and I was able to create two mortars with this mixture. I'm sure you can create even more. If you don't want to create that much mix then maybe you can do two full cups and then half a cup of water and you should get the same consistency. You want the consistency to be like a creamy milkshake. Not too thick but also not too runny and once you have that ready, you're then going to spray the inside of your planter with some WD-40 anywhere where the mortar would be touching the planter as well as outside of the plastic cup. You can then grab a cup full of mix and then pour it into the planter and then grab that plastic cup and press down to create the shape of the mortar. I also tapped it so that way it was an even layer on the top and I left it like that for about 20 minutes and I came back to see if it had hardened a little bit. If it feels too mushy then it's not ready for you to remove the cup but if it feels very firm to the touch then you can start to remove the cup and let the inside kind of dry a little more. So I did notice that the one side where the sun was hitting was a little bit more firm so I turned it around and let it harden on the other side and once I came back and it felt firm but not completely dry, I did remove the planter so I flipped it upside down. I patted it a few times and it popped out. The only thing is that you have to make sure that the mortar feels firm including the inside because if it's not ready to be flipped then it will break apart or crack so be patient. You also don't want it to be completely dry because I did want to soften the edges and kind of round them out similar to the mortars that you see at all of Atelier so since it's not completely dry it should be easy for you to just rub your fingers on the edges and kind of round them out and you can even break off some more pieces to give it more character but once you're done rounding out the edges you can leave it out for another 20 to 30 minutes and it should be completely dry. I of course had to distress it a little bit to make it look vintage so I watered down the color melted chocolate which is just a craft paint from Walmart. It's about 50 cents so it's very affordable so I used a paper towel and soaked it into the watered down paint and then I dabbed it onto the mortar but to blend it I would use a clean wet paper towel and sort of rub off the excess paint and just make the mortar look very dirty. I did try to focus mainly on the bottom and also on the top since those are areas where dirt tends to collect more. It's a very simple and easy process and it truly makes the mortar look like a vintage piece. I went ahead and also added some paint to the inside and then I just styled it on top of a book. I am honestly very proud of how this turned out. For the next DIY we are going to make another mortar but this time as a candle. All of Atelier also has these on their site and they retail for $145. I do know other shops sell them as well and they are also extremely pricey so let's make it for a lot less. You're going to follow the same steps as the first DIY but for this one I tried a different painting technique and I think I like this one a little bit more. This time I painted the entire mortar inside and out the color tan which is a craft paint from Michaels and then I watered down that same color melted chocolate but this time I added a little bit of black to cool it down a bit. I then followed the same steps. I soaked a paper towel into the watered down paint. I would dab it onto the mortar and then I would use a clean wet paper towel to rub off any excess. Having that first coat of paint makes the paint go on a lot smoother and blend a lot easier. I also noticed that the mortar looked a lot darker which I feel like made it look a little bit more vintage so I do like how this painting technique turned out a lot more. Now I do want to say that I am not sure how safe it is to burn this candle because of the materials we used. In the end you will see that I lit it up and it was completely fine but I do think I'm going to use it just as decor. I personally just love the look of it and again because of the WD-40 and the paint that we used I'm not sure how flammable it can be so please be aware of that. To make the candle I did buy a $6 candle at Target. I grabbed this scent and it smells amazing. I'm not usually one to recommend scents but this one smells so good. I have made a candle before. I did one for fall in a glass canister and I have seen my friends Brittany and Jenna do a candle on their social media platforms so it's super simple. All I did was boil some water. I put the burner on low heat and then placed the candle inside. It does take a while for it to completely melt. I know you can also use a candle warmer if you have one but once it's completely melted I like to take out some of the water so I can grab the candle a lot easier. I first removed the existing wick with a spoon and since it has some hot wax it just sticks on to any surface and then carefully pour the wax into the mortar. It is really hot so please be very careful. If for some reason some wax does spill you can just grab a hot towel and rub it off. You can also always touch up the paint. The wax does take a while for it to harden but once it does I grabbed some scissors and just cleaned up the edges a little bit just to make it look cleaner and as if I bought it from a store and I just styled it on top of some books. I lit it up and I could not be happier with it. Next up is a clay bead garland that I shared in my last video. It retails for $89. It is handmade and very heavy so I thought hmm maybe I can make it myself. So I remember that I had some air dry clay. I purchased mine from Michaels. You can buy the big tub for $10 online or the small tub for about $6. Since the garland has two different shapes I started off by creating all the balls which is a total of 10. I would grab some clay and just roll it into the ball in my hands making sure there weren't any noticeable cracks in the clay. The diameter of the balls on the original one are about an inch and a half so I made sure that the ones that I made were about the same size. Now to create some texture I grabbed some aluminum foil and I crumpled it up a little bit and used it as a stencil. I would gently place it over the ball. I would press it down and then it would create some texture on the ball which will make more sense once we add some paint but the point of this is to make it look handmade and not too perfect. Since we will be attaching these all together into a garland I did need to create a hole and I just used a paintbrush which is something that I already had. I did make the hole about a centimeter wide. It doesn't really matter how big you make it. I think as long as the string fits through you'll be fine and I also made some indentations with the paintbrush. It did add a little bit more texture and once again it made it look more handmade. Now for the cylinder shape, the one from the original bead garland is about an inch and a quarter thick and an inch and three quarters wide. So to create the shape I rolled the clay into a ball and then I grabbed a measuring cup that was around the same width as the cylinder and I used it to press down on the ball. It did help in knowing how wide I had to make it so if you don't have anything in your home that is a similar size you can create your own stencil with a piece of cardboard or a piece of paper. So once I pressed it down I did turn it over on its side and started rolling it. This helps and create that cylinder shape and once I was happy with it I then flipped it back around and started shaping it with my hands. I would smooth it with my fingers and I did this until I was happy with the shape and I did make sure that it was a similar size to the one from the original one. I also used that same paintbrush to make the hole and I grabbed the aluminum foil to create some texture and for this shape I did make nine which is what the original bead garland had. They did take about two full days to completely dry and you don't have to bake this clay which is really nice. So once they are ready you can start to paint them. I used the color tan from Michael's which is almost the exact color to the original one. Now since we created texture on them I love how the paint doesn't settle into all the little cracks that we made. It just gives it a similar look to the original one and it just makes it look handmade and not too perfect. It gives it that vintage authentic look which I love. I did use a wet paper towel to dab the paint all over the pieces. Some did need two coats because the paint was a little see-through in certain areas but it's all going to depend on how you like it if you want to add a second coat. Meanwhile those dried I grabbed some macrame cord that I already had. I did purchase this one from Amazon for about $5 so it's very affordable and the first thing that I did was I cut 16 12 inch pieces and used that same tan paint from Michael's to paint them. I also cut another piece of string that was about 40 inches long. This is the string we will be using to attach everything together so I cut it extra long to make sure I had enough. I also painted it that same tan color just like the original garland. Once all of those are completely dry you are then going to assemble everything together so what I did was I tied a knot on one end and you're going to start off with a ball first and then you're going to alternate the shapes so it's going to be a ball, a cylinder, a ball, a cylinder, and then the last shape should be a ball and then I tied another knot to make sure everything was tight and nothing would be moving. Next up I gathered eight of those 12 inch pieces we cut and painted earlier. I made sure they were aligned so we can use them in our next step. I then cut off the extra string from the garland and then left about two inches of string. I untwisted that string and then folded the eight 12 inch pieces in half to be able to secure them with the untwisted string as you can see. Hopefully watching me do it makes more sense but once it's nice and secured I cut another piece of string and used some glue to secure it and then started wrapping it around the other strings. Again I hope watching me do it makes a lot more sense than me explaining it but once that is completely wrapped around I added some more glue to seal it and make sure that it won't become undone. The last two steps is untwisting each piece of string on the ends. This is how the strings are in the original one and once you start untwisting them you will see that some parts won't have paint on them so the last step is to grab some more paint and just paint everything including the white string we used earlier. You want to give it a nice coat so that no white is peeking through. Once you are done you repeat the same steps for the other side and last minute I did decide to trim the ends so that they look the exact same as the original ones. I did trim them to about three and a half inches in case you want to have the same look and trim them as well. I styled it on some coffee table bugs but you can style them on their own in a bowl. There are lots of ways to style them. I honestly can't tell the difference from the original ones which makes me so happy. Next up is a paper mache bowl. These are very popular and you can purchase these anywhere but at Olive Atelier they are around $55 to $75 depending on the size. Well, while I was at Hobby Lobby in the aisle where they have all the clay and rocks, I saw that they had this dry mix of paper mache for only $7.99. Now I did try to make my own using egg cartons but it was a complete fail and this one is perfect because you just have to mix with water. I also grabbed this $3 bowl from Target and if you want to make two different sizes they did have a smaller one for 50 cents. The first step is wrapping the entire bottom of the bowl with some plastic wrap. You have to make sure the entire bottom is covered that way the paper mache does not stick on directly to the bowl. I did secure mine with tape just so that it wouldn't be moving around as I was applying the paper mache and I also placed my bowl on some parchment paper and you also want to place it on some sort of tray that way you will be able to move it around once it has to dry. You can then start mixing your paper mache. So I mixed three parts of the dry paper mache and then one part water. The directions do say one cup mix and one cup water but I thought a three to one ratio was a better consistency. I did use a total of 15 cups of mix for the entire bowl but I just worked in sections. I would just mix some more if I needed it and that's what I recommend doing because if you start off with mixing a lot of the mix you don't know if you're going to end up using it all and you're going to end up just wasting it. So I would just work in sections and start mixing more if you need it. I did start off by applying an even layer of mix onto the entire bowl. It is super easy to work with and it blends so nicely. You just have to use your fingers to blend it and it gives you the perfect amount of texture. I am very impressed with this paper mache mix. I honestly still can't believe it was only $7.99 but once you have one layer of mix I then went in and started creating a thick border around the edge of the bowl kind of like the vintage paper mache bowls specifically like the one that I have. So I would just add some paper mache and then I would smooth out the edge with my finger and start to create kind of like a crease. So if you see I just use two fingers and I pinch the mix together and I create this little crease around the entire bowl. Once you have that done you're then going to create kind of like a little platform for the bowl to stand on. So I just did a thick small circle on the top but honestly I would recommend just doing a little border instead of the entire bottom because this is what took the longest to dry and I'm sure it's because it's super thick so it took a lot longer to dry. So I recommend just doing a little rim or like a border around that way when it is standing you won't know that the entire bottom isn't covered. So I did leave it out to dry and it took a very long time to dry. On the bag it says that it takes about one to two days but it honestly took five days for it to completely dry. I did get a little desperate and started using my hair dryer on the sections that were taking a lot longer to dry so it was the border around the bowl and then that little platform that we created on the bottom. Those two took a lot longer to dry so I did use my hair dryer towards the end and also be very patient. You don't want to remove the plastic bowl before it's completely dry because it can put too much weight on a certain section and it can potentially break or rip so just be very patient. I would leave it out in the sun in the morning and then I would bring it back inside and just leave it on the counter for it to dry. So once it was completely dry I again used melted chocolate. This is one of my favorite paints. I added some black and I watered it down and I started rubbing it onto the bowl but I noticed that since it is paper it absorbs it super quickly so it's almost impossible for it to blend so what worked for me is I would dab the paper towel into the paint and I would squeeze every ounce of water out of that paper towel so that way there was only a little bit of paint residue left and that's what I would use to rub onto the bowl. It gave me that perfect dirty and vintage look without it looking like I painted it. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I just styled it on my shelves. I placed something inside so that I can stack my other paper mache bowl that I already had and I'm still in awe that I was able to create one for less than ten dollars. Last but not least are some cowbells. I see these a lot in the home decor world, specifically in homes designed by Amber Interiors and I love how they look. I have seen some on Etsy for over a hundred dollars but at Michaels they have cowbells for just five dollars. I did pick up two black ones and I will also be using my paints Melted Chocolate, Surprise Surprise and the color Dark Taupe from Michaels. I love how the bells were already black so that it can peek through the paint but I started off by applying Melted Chocolate with a wet paper towel. I was honestly very messy with this. The messier the better. It's going to look vintage and rusty so just have fun with it. I started dabbing the color Dark Taupe on top of the brown and then blending them together. I honestly think that the more layers the better it will look so I applied it all over the bell. Once I was happy with the result, I let it completely dry and then I went in one more time with Dark Taupe and this definitely made such a difference and it truly gave it that vintage look so I highly recommend letting them dry at least one time and then applying some more Dark Taupe. Once they were completely done, I then styled them on my bell hooks that I have from Luxby Co. but you can style these on their own. Amber Interiors always has her styled on their own and they always look amazing. So what do you guys think? I am so in love with how they look and just how I styled them too. I am so happy with how they came out and I really hope you all love them. I think my favorite one is this stone mortar candle. Every time I walk by there, I can't believe I made the entire thing. It's so crazy to me sometimes how my ideas come to life. So I really hope you all enjoyed and got motivated to do some DIYs. I would appreciate any love on today's video. I worked really really hard on it and it definitely helps out my channel and helps my video get pushed out so that everyone can see my DIYs. So I really appreciate any comment that you leave down below. I always make sure to respond. I will have all the materials and everything that I use linked down below in case you want to give them a try. Anyways, I appreciate all of you so so much for being here and for watching and until next time, bye!