Spray Paint Dried Flowers

A few years ago,  I made a dried flower arrangement with grasses and seed heads picked from my yard and spray painted it gold. Did you know you can spray paint dried flowers with regular old spray paint to get a custom look? This is a great trick to use when making custom decor, wedding centerpieces and more! And Florists have been spray painting flowers  with floral spray paint for arrangements for years, I am simply taking their cue! All of those odd and unnatural colored flowers have either been dyed or painted at  your local florist. There are no such thing as blue carnations or bright orange hydrangeas.

I had gathered hydrangeas, grasses and daylily seed pods to create pretty dried floral arrangements from. Even though hydrangeas fade to a beautiful gold color, I wanted to add in a few other colors and try another project out as well. I had a beautiful clear day to play around. You can see a post where I talk about gathering the flowers and stems from my yard, plus a few other suggestions for things you can gather to add to dried flower arrangements. FYI, they are flammable so keep them away from heat sources or open flames.

Check out: Gathering flowers and stems for dried flower arrangements

Read this: How to Dry Flowers for Dried Floral Arrangements

I admit, I had to go to a few different stores to find all of the colors I wanted for the project. I ended up at Michaels, Hobby Lobby and Home Depot to find all of the fast-drying spray paint colors I needed. It ended up being an adventure. I realized out of all of them, Home Depot actually had the best and biggest selection of spray paint choices and vibrant colors for my blooms.

A few things needed to spray paint flowers besides the paint: safety goggles and a mask ( and gloves if you don’t want paint on your hands),a well-ventilated area, a box to use as a spray “tent” and a rack of some kind to let them dry on. I used an old crate and small metal table, but you’ll want something that the flower head can hang upright in for the drying process. They will be sticky for a while. Even a large box with holes poked through the bottom would work. Do several light coats of the paint and make sure to cover all of the petals for solid color.

The most important thing about spray painting the foliage is to make sure the day isn’t very windy, and that you turn your flower to make sure you cover all of the sides while spray painting dried flowers . It helped to hold it by the far end of the stem and turn them, spraying away. Let dry before adding a second coat.

Make This: A Spray Painted Leaf Wreath

Once they are painted, put them in your drying rack and let them dry for 24 hours. Some of the paints with less matte finishes took much longer to dry, and stayed stick for a while. And I liked the look of the matte paints over the shiny paints better. You want to let them dry completely so there isn’t any moisture left, otherwise they will feel sticky when you are arranging the blooms into bouquets.

 

Once they are dry , they are ready to use! You can use them for various crafts and home decor, mixing with fresh flowers in arrangements, or displaying them in a vase. I have a few things planned already for fall decor!