The Dollar Tree Stoneware Bowl Hack Everyone's Using For Chic Kitchen Storage

While Dollar Tree has stopped capping its prices at $1 and now sells items for relatively higher (like the $7 pitchers that look straight out of a Magnolia Home fall catalog), you still need to be careful when picking up home decor from the ultra budget chain. While not quite aesthetically pleasing, Dollar Tree's range of glass and plastic pieces does offer a great starting point to turn them into stylish, functional pieces for your home. The hack currently doing the rounds turns a $1.75 Floral Garden Round Plastic Terrarium Dish and a $1.25 Round Glass Candleholder into what looks like a chic stoneware bowl to hold all the little knick-knacks on your kitchen counter. In fact, the finished piece looks good enough to display virtually anywhere in the house, doubling up as storage for small items in an easily accessible fashion.

An Instagram post by @dreamyabode.us shows a quick way to make a stylish piece from the aforementioned Dollar Tree items. Simply glue the plastic dish over the glass candleholder using a multipurpose adhesive like the E6000, and hold it in place till it sets. Next, make a mixture of acrylic paint and baking soda and cover the piece with a coat to give it some texture. Finally, add a layer of textured spray paint like the Krylon K18213 Coarse Stone Texture Finish to give the piece that earthy look.

The options here are endless, and you can mix and match different shades with various glass, plastic, and metal pieces that you can pick up for cheap. Remember to use earthy tones or blacks and grays to keep the effect convincing.

If you want actual stoneware pieces, you can look for such long-lasting pieces at thrift stores. However, they'll almost never be as cheap as a Dollar Store item, so if you don't mind a little DIY, the faux-stoneware piece you can make at home can look just as elegant. Plus, you can make one of the exact size and color to fit your needs.

There are several types of paints available to give surfaces a textured look. In addition to one that gives a coarse stone texture finish, you can also get the smoother-looking Rust-Oleum satin stone finish or a much coarser Krylon hammered finish spray paint. It's generally a good idea to use multiple coats of spray paint since any glass or plastic bits that remain uncovered will spoil the overall effect of the piece.

For a more unevenly textured, rustic look, delve deeper into the baking soda paint hack. This pantry staple has a treasure trove of unexpected uses around the kitchen, and now you can even use it to give smooth surfaces a stone or clay appearance. Simply mix baking soda with paint until you have a thick, paste-like consistency. Don't water it down, since the viscosity adds to the texture, which you can control by changing the proportion of baking soda or paint. You can add multiple layers, sanding in between to give the piece a more authentic texture. Consider trying different painting techniques, like using old towels, sponges, and different-sized paintbrushes to achieve different effects, before finishing with a protective clear coat on the piece.