DIY Dollar Tree Faux Vintage Bells

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Happy Wednesday everyone!

I apologize for not having a new post on Monday, but if you follow me on either Facebook or Instagram, you would have seen that I was taking the day off since my kiddos were home from school and yesterday was my birthday.

So here we are today with the first Look for Less challenge of the year. If you don’t know what the Look for Less Challenge is, it’s where I ask my fellow YouTubers (and you of course) to recreate something you love from a higher end home decor store, but for a whole lot less.

If you wish to join definitely check out my previous post with all of the details and rules as well as my co-host for the month of January.

RELATED: My First Look for Less

Since this is my first Look for Less in several months, I wanted to start off kinda small just so I can start catching the rhythm of things as well as make sure it was a project anyone at home could do.

Over the holidays I had seen these vintage bells over on Ballard Designs’s website and I fell in love (with the bells, not the price tag).

I mean, they were on sale, but $36 for one bell is just too much, at least for me.

So, also over the holidays, I had bought some Dollar Tree Christmas Bells that I never used this year because of my move.

Ignore the white one from Target Dollar Spot. I thought I was going to use it for this, but then changed my mind.

Let’s just focus on those plastic brassy ones.

I knew that with some minor changes and some paint I could make them look vintage so the first thing I did was remove the greenery.

Since the were both the exact same bell, I wanted them to look slightly different so with my woodturning kit (using the cutting tool) I cut the top off one of them.

Total hack job I know! It was my first time. ??‍♀️

I had some wood finials and beads and decided to hot glue it on the top of that one.

Then I used some of my brushed metal paints by Plaid and gave everything one coat with a chip brush. I used a chip brush making all of my strokes horizontal, because I wanted the paint to have texture like metal would.

Paint used for this faux vintage bell:

Brushed Metal in Brushed Black
Brushed Metal in Brushed Bronze

I let it sit to dry and then gave it another coat… I ended up giving it 3 coats total always making sure to continue the horizontal strokes.

So far so good, but then it was time to add something more.

Some bronze to be exact.

With a chip brush, you will dry brush the bronze paint onto the bell, this time using vertical strokes. Once you dry brushed a section, take a paper towel and kind of rub in and rub off the excess from the dry brushing.

The brush stroke on the front was my initial dry brush stroke, but to the left you can see after I rubbed the previous stroke with a paper towel.

And that is all there is to that version.

You can also watch the video tutorial as well here:

Here is what I did to the other one.

First, I wanted it to have a hanging hoop (just for show, not function) so I used one of the book (or binder) rings that you can get from the Dollar Tree.

I hooked it through the top of the bell and hot glued it to place from the inside. Then I added a little wood ball to the top of the bell.

Afterwards I used a dry erase marker to make 2 lines all around the bell.

I then took my “line” piece from my wood burning kit and burned those lines all the way around.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, remember… vintage.

Next, I began to paint the bell.

Here are the paints I used for this faux vintage bell:

Folkart Acrylic Peppercorn
Brushed Metal in Brushed Dark Gray
Folkart Treasure Gold
Antiquing Wax

I applied one layer of the Peppercorn using horizontal strokes again.

Next, I applied the Brush Dark Gray in vertical strokes.

After that was dry I came in with the Treasure Gold and I used a small pencil brush to apply it in the lines.

Then I began dry brushing more gold all over. Wiping down the gold after it was dry-brushed on. I used horizontal strokes here.

I love all the texture the opposite strokes gave this bell!

Finally it was still looking too “clean” and “crisp” to me so I took some of my favorite antiquing wax, mixed it with some water, and brushed it all over the bell, wiping off the excess to dry it (it will be a little runny).

This stuff is awesome for so many things! If you don’t have some, you should get some STAT!

It finally started looking aged.

And that was it for that one as well….

Here they are both finished! You would never think they were plastic and brassy at one point.

I love that they were both the same yet turned out so different.

You can definitely use anything you have on hand that might work for the handles.

And if you don’t have any of these bells from Dollar Tree, I see a ton of old porcelain ones at thrift stores all the time that would work just as well!