Wishing Well - Painting and Decorating It

I have painted my bathroom in the past to look like a stone garden wall. Click here to see that post.

I figured if I could paint that to look like a real garden wall, I could paint a garbage can to look like a wishing well of stone. 

I took shades of brown, grey, silver and red and made them into stones. 

Basically, you can make any shape stone you wish but the trick is to leave a little bit of the black showing in the corners so it looks like mortar as you would never be able to get the rocks exactly tight, there is always some space in the edges. 


So, you just start painting different shapes and colors and be careful to not angle them all one direction. Keep making them odd shapes and don't work next to each other. 

I do one here and one there in the same color so I don't have to work with that color again after I am done, there is a rock here and a space and a rock there and as I work with different colors, I fill in the spaces. 


First do one color solid. While that color dries, I use another color to make more rocks. Once the first rocks color is dry, I will use the first color mixed with a little white to highlight the rock and make it have dimension. You can then add a little black to the color and go around the edges making it look a bit shaded.

You can see here the colors I used to make the rock wall. You can also see in the picture that some are more muted than others and some I got tired and really let the highlighted section go more streaked but I wanted to get it done. 

To avoid the streak look and make it more blended, keep the brush or sponge moist. I didn't and that is why it looks like a skunk stripe instead of more highlighted and muted. I like the look more when I kept it wet and do more of a sponge technique like on the grey ones. 


It isn't going to hurt anything to just mess around and try different techniques or color types. You can always paint over it and make it look different if you don't like what you have done. 

I showed you in the top pictures how I drilled holes through the garbage can and lid so I could attach the wooden sides of the well and once it is drilled, you push wire through the outside and twist them on the inside to keep the wood in place and to keep the lid on the well. 

You can see in the pictures how I twisted the wire on the inside of the wood and you can see on the outside how I painted a "rock" over the outside of the wire making it match a bit better. 

Just keep painting more rocks and mixing in white or black to make the rocks lighter or darker until you have the entire thing filled in. It doesn't matter if some of the rocks are smaller or odd shaped as you can see. 

Once you have the entire thing painted, you can decorate it. I had ivy from a project in the girls room a few years ago so I figured i would attach that and make it look like a wet well would with things growing on it. I did show you both sides of the garbage can so you could see how even though the one side goes in some and the other side has wheels, you can't really tell by the way it is painted.

I didn't use anything to attach the ivy to the can. I just twisted it around the things using the wires already on the can from where I attached the boards. I tucked in the ivy to the wire and twisted it around the wood and the handle etc. I poked the smaller pieces into the lower drilled wire holes as you can see if you look closely. 
 
I was thrilled to find some dragon fly lights that worked on batteries at the dollar store. They glow blue/white and I figured there would be dragonflies anywhere there is water so I bought them. 

I just wrapped them around the ivy and hung the little battery pack on the inside edge and wanted to show you how it looked at night. We are at girls camp for several nights so I wanted the girls to have some fun lights to guide them to our cabin at night. I have some flickering candles but I thought the well being lit up would make it fun. 


I also wanted to show you the bucket I didn't decide to use. I bought this ice bucket and was going to paint it like a wooden pail but found the other one I liked better but in case you are making one and can't find a wooden looking bucket, just know you can use an ice bucket painted like wood. 

Check out my blog tomorrow where I show you how to make the bucket actually go up and down in a working way. I knew the girls would probably want to crank it up and down so I figure, it is worth showing you as it took me awhile to figure it out. 

I am really pleased with how it is working out. I'll have to get some pictures of the girls using it at camp. I think it will be a hit as our camp mailbox.