DIY Rustic Holiday Buckets

Sunday, December 3, 2017


Everything new is old again! Maybe that's not how the original saying goes but it fits with today's DIY project! When I saw these rustic holiday buckets pop up all over Instagram I instantly fell in love and wanted them to add to this year's porch to tie in with my rustic theme (full reveal coming soon). Then I saw the $80 price tag and my jaw literally dropped. In years past, I may have closed my eyes and hit order and then tell the delivery person to hide the package from my husband, but this year spending over $100 on rustic buckets just wasn't in the SAHM budget. So, I set out to DIY these!

I swear, if you give me $20 I can find a way to DIY anything you want (within reason of course)! I knew from the moment I saw these that I could find a way to make them for a fraction of the price they were being sold for. I did a quick google search for galvanized buckets and was not able to find anything big enough for what I wanted. So, I was really going to be DIY'ing this project. As in start from scratch DIY'ing it. The good news is, you can complete this project for less than $20! The bad news is, I had to spend a tad more than that to find this out for you... the ol' 'third time's a charm' saying came into play with this project as I had to start over a few times to get the results I had wanted.

So, let's get started!

What you will need:
(These are NOT affiliate links- but links to the exact products I used)

The first thing I did was give my bucket a couple coats of spray paint. My bucket only needed two coats. I really like how the hammered paint comes out versus just metallic silver paint. It adds a bit of that 'galvanized' look I was going for!


Once my bucket was dry (I let it sit overnight), I made sure to cut my stencils down so that there wasn't a ton of space between letters and lined them up against the top line of the bucket to make sure they were straight.




Once all of the letters were in place I simply dapped by foam brush into a small amount of paint and started to dab the paint over the stencils. I chose to do one row of letters at a time.



Then, to add a bit more of the rustic feel I dabbed just a tiny bit of brown paint around the rim of the bucket. I did this to the bottom as well.



When that was dry, I dry rubbed some of the brown paint around the top of the bucket to look as though it was rusting from the top rim of the bucket.


I also decided to make this bucket look at rustic as possible I would rust up the handle and remove the new looking plastic holder. We simply cut the plastic off of the handle and dapped brown paint on the handle. One coat was all it took.



After all of the paint was dry from all of the different steps it was done! This rustic bucket was ready to be added to my rustic themed front porch!





I love love LOVE how this project turned out! I plan to add a couple more of varying sizes! And now that I have all of the supplies this project will be virtually free! And I like free ;)

How have you DIY'd an expense item you've seen? Share your projects with me in the comments below!

As always, Thank you for visiting R&R at home!




1 comment

  1. This looks like you spent $80 on it! Such a great DIY! (Just found your blog and enjoying looking around... even if I'm looking at Christmas posts in July :)

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