Arts & Crafts for Umbrella Stands

Tin Bucket

• Tall tin buckets, commonly used for flowers and gardening, can be made into an umbrella stand for inside your home. Paint the bottom half of the bucket with an oil-based enamel paint with high gloss finish. This hides the bottom of the tin bucket, which, after becoming wet too often from the umbrellas, could start to rust. Paint designs with the enamel paint on the upper half of the bucket to make a fashionable umbrella stand.

Decoupage

• Decoupage is the art of gluing paper, tissue paper or other flat materials onto objects. Use this arts and crafts technique, which children or adults can do, to add color to your umbrella stand. Simply look for images that you wish to cut out, or select colored paper. For a creative punch, use candy wrappers as your paper medium. After the paper is cut, glue it directly onto the umbrella stand in a collage-effect. Then, brush a special glue, known as decoupage gel, over the paper to seal and protect it. When the glue dries the paper images become one with the umbrella stand.

Paint Makeover

• Spruce up your old umbrella stand by giving it a paint makeover. One idea is to strip its original color and replace it with another, fresher paint. Or, you can paint designs over the preexisting color. A pattern of falling raindrops or pairs of galoshes are rain-themed designs that you can paint for your umbrella stand makeover.

Coffee Can Umbrella Stand

• Using three 3-lb coffee cans -- cleaned and with the lids and bottoms removed -- kids or adults can create an umbrella stand. Use craft glue to affix the three cans on top of one another so that they sit tall. Then, cut up scraps of fabric and materials to glue over the sides of the coffee cans. Select fabric and materials that match your room decor so that the finished umbrella stand fits in.