High End Dupe – Horchow and Pottery Barn

Nailed it or Failed it Challenge

Recently I did another fun challenge! This one is called the Nailed it or failed it challenge. The idea is to pick a decor piece that you would like to have in your home, and recreate it (or dupe it) for less. And then at the end, we ask our audience if we nailed it or failed it. Sound like fun? Or does it maybe seem like setting your self up for failure  😉 It’s all about learning and growing right?

This challenge was hosted by the ladies over at:

Mama Dares to DIY

Sweet Urban Rose

Youtube

This was a youtube challenge and if you prefer to watch it click here. However, I will detail the whole process here as well for you.

Playlist

Here is the link to the whole  playlist  for this challenge.

Supplies

Vase:

Vase

Mod Podge

Food Colouring

Krylon Metallic Gold Spray Paint

Gloss Clear spray 

Painter’s tape

Exacto Knife

Silk Flowers

Candle Holders:

Poster board

Paper cup

Metal mini stainless bowl

Elmer’s Spray Adhesive

Hot Glue Gun

The Dupes

Here are the two pieces that I chose to DUPE, which as I’m sure you know means to duplicate, and in this case for less. Hopefully much much less.

Howchow Vase

This gorgeous floral arrangement from Horchow is a whopping $455 when it’s not on sale. Ok, ok, I’m sure that the designer who designed it is fabulous. But, so am I 😉

Pottery Barn Candle Holders

These Pottery Barn Candle Holders are made of bronze, theirs, not mine. Now obviously I’m not going to be making mine from bronze, but I will be duplicating the look. These will run you about $110 for the pair.

Let’s Start with the Vase

Colour it

I started with a vase of a similar style to the one in the Horchow photo. I got mine from dollarama, a while back and had it in my craft stash. Okay, so maybe I’m a bit of a craft hoarder… So we need to make our vase a similar colour to theirs. I just did a similar process when I did my moroccan lanterns. This is the same process. Start by mixing mod podge and food colouring in a bowl with a little water. It was about 1/2 cup of mod podge and about 1 tablespoon of water, although I didn’t measure anything.  And if I’m being totally honest, I messed it up the first time I did the colouring I made it too purple, by mixing the red and blue around 50/50. Which gave me a rather lilac looking vase.

So, I mixed up a second batch and the second time, I mixed it with about 6 drops of red to one drop of blue. And here is the interesting part. It turns out that you can re-coat a vase with mod podge twice, without having to start over. I just poured the second mixture into the  already lilac vase, and did it again. So once your colour is all mixed, you pour the mixture into the vase and turn the vase until the inside is fully coated. Then turn it upside down onto a pice of tin foil, to let the excess mod podge run off. Let it sit for 30 – 60 minutes. Keep moving it on the tinfoil, so the mod podge has somewhere to puddle.Then put it on a baking sheet right side up, and bake it in the oven at 275 degrees farenheit, until it’s clear.  This takes approx. 20 minutes. Let it cool off.

Tape off

In order to get the effect of the gold section on the bottom of the vase I first wrapped it, using 2 widths of 2″ painter’s tape. Then I used a small hemming ruler that I had in my sewing supplies, and measured off 4.75″ to get the line where I wanted it on the vase. I hooked the stopper over the top of the vase and then poked my pencil through the small hole on the bottom, and used it to mark my line on the tape. Then I used a VERY SHARP (fresh out of the box) X-axto knife to score around the tape. Then peel it off. After I peeled the tape off I added another piece of tape lining up the edge to my cut line, just to ensure I didn’t have any ragged edges.

Paint

Then I put a plastic bag over the top section of the vase, and secured the edge to the tape, so that I didn’t get any overspray. I used krylon gold metallic spray paint, and gave it 2 coats. Then after it was dry, I applied 2 coats of gloss clear.

Score

Before peeling off the tape, I took my Xacto knife and ran in around the tape edge first and then peeled it off slowly to make sure there weren’t any spots where it was sticking. I did have a couple small areas where the line was imperfect and had a tiny bit of flaking. I remedied this by taking a thin piece of gold ribbon, that I had left over from some other long ago project, and I applied that right around the transition between the glass and the gold paint, and this hid any imperfections.

Add Flowers

The final step is to add your flowers. These ones are from the dollar tree. I tried to mimic the arrangement as much as possible from the Horchow version.It’s probably best to only use artificial flowers in this vase, as I do not think the mod podge would hold up to water, as it’s a glue based substance.  Besides, artificial flowers require no watering, and they are very difficult to kill for those of you without green thumbs 🙂

Costs

The cost of the Horchow piece was $455 regular, but was on sale for $341.25. I made mine for about $10, which is really the cost of the flowers, since I had all of the rest of the supplies on hand.

Verdict

So what do you think? Did I nail it or fail it? Let me know in the comments.

Candle Holders

These bronze candle holders from Pottery Barn retail for $110 for the pair. No way I’m going to spend that much money!

Paper Cones

Step one is to make a cone for the bottom section of your candle holder. Start with a piece of poster board, a bit on the stiffer side. I bought mine at dollar tree for $0.50. I used a sharpie, a small screwdriver and a piece of string as my compass. The length of the string was 12″ since this is how tall I wanted the bottom section of the candle holder to be. Tie the string to the sharpie on one end and the screwdriverer (you could use a nail)  on the other, maintaining a distance of 12″ of string. Stick the screwdriver into a piece of cardboard undreneath the poster board and draw an arc with the sharpie. Now you will have a quarter circle.

Paper Cones

Cut it out and roll it into a cone shape, keeping the top pointed and the bottom round. I then used a paper cup and inserted this into the bottom of the cone and taped the cone to the rim of the cup to keep the bottom straight and stable.

I glued the cone closed using Elmer’s spray adhesive and then I also ran a piece of painter’s tape down the seam as well, this will stay at the back.

Bowl

The bowls that I used for the cup section of the candle holders are from Dollarama and they were $4 for a pack of 4. If you do not have access to Dollarama, they have a similar shaped bowl at dollar tree but it’s plastic and not metal. Before gluing your bowl down, You will want to cut the pointed tip of the cone off, and use the bowl  to push down the edges of the cone so that when you glue it on it is level and stable. Use hot glue to attach the bowl to the cone, but be careful because the metal bowl really heats up when hot glue is applied to it.

Attach

Attach the bowl, than make sure that it’s level by spinning it around. Let it dry.

Paint

The final step is to paint the candle holder. I used the same paint as I did for the Horchow vase dupe, Krylon Metallic Gold Spray Paint. Just give it a coat of gold paint, and then when it’s dry go over it a second time, ensuring that you cover any spots you may have missed the first time. Let dry.

Pair

I also made a second candle holder a bit shorter, which I did by using 2″ less on my “compass”I kept the bottom measurement the same, by using the same sized cup. I did end up having to cut the cup a bit so that I could properly size the cone, but the cup is only to keep the bottom edge round and stable.

Add Candles

Then I just added a couple of candles and popped these babies on my buffet by my front  entrance way.

Costs

These were stupid cheap to make. I got both cones out of one sheet of poster board, which cost $0.50. The bowls I purchased at dollarama and they were $4 for a 4 pack. So $1 each. I had the paint on hand. So the total cost for both candle holders is a whopping $3.

Verdict

Time to vote! What do you think? Did I nail it or fail it? Don’t be shy, let me know, I’m a big girl, I. can  take it 🙂

A Pairing

And here are my two projects together, I think they complement each other nicely don’t you?

This was a lot of fun, and I really love a good challenge. As a matter of fact, I’m trying to challenge myself with more difficult projects. If you have one that you would like me to duplicate, send me a message and let me know!

 

 

 

 

 

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