Make Photo Vases with the Most Unique Material

Learn how to make the most unique DIY photo vases out of PVC pipe! This makes a great centerpiece for Mother’s Day or special gift idea.

Skills Required: Intermediate. You can opt to use a miter saw or have the pipe cut for you. Drilling into the wood plaque to seat your pipes is optional. Your only challenge might be Mod Podging the laserjet photo images to the pipes without wrinkles, so you should have some Mod Podge experience.

If you don’t have Mod Podging experience, it doesn’t mean you can’t try! But I would do a test on a small piece of pipe first.

Everybody has a mom, even Man Podger David. No, he wasn’t brought down on a crafty alien spaceship, though sometimes his projects are out of this world! That was a horrible joke, by the way.

David’s decoupage gift for Mother’s Day is a collection of photo vases made out of PVC pipe, so even though my joke was bad, it was completely true. Here’s how he made these DIY vases.

I’m getting a lot of requests for Mother’s Day themed items at my Etsy store, so I had the holiday on the brain when I visited Home Depot recently. I found myself, as I often do, in front of all the PVC piping thinking “there must be something I can make out of this!” PVC pipe for the win.

There are so many great shapes and sizes and it’s all so affordable, but I’ve never been able to come up with anything. And it suddenly dawned on me that I could use the various pipes to make DIY vases.

And then I thought, why not decoupage the pipes in old pictures and make fun, nostalgic photo vases for a Mom’s Day celebration? For a total cost of about $12.

Tools

• Miter saw
• Forstner Bit and drill (optional)

You don’t *have* to use Mod Podge Outdoor for this project. Mine is going on an outdoor table, so the Outdoor formula would be appropriate. If this is going inside, you can use the formula of your choice (I recommend Gloss, Matte, or Satin).

It looks great with my family reunion centerpiece! Get the printable how to card below:

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5 from 2 votes

Photo Vase DIY

Learn how to make photo vases with simple materials from Home Depot! This is the coolest project, with unique results.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Active Time2 hours hrs 30 minutes mins

Dry Time12 hours hrs

Total Time14 hours hrs 45 minutes mins

Yield: 1 centerpiece

Cost: $5

Equipment

• Miter saw
• Foam brush(es)
• Forstner Bit and drill (optional)

Materials

• PVC pipes various widths
• PVC caps to fit the pipes
• PVC pipe cement
• Mod Podge Outdoor
• Wooden plaque for a base painted with the color of your choice (mine is from Michaels)
• E-6000
• Laser copies of old photos

Video

Instructions

• Cut the PVC pipe into various lengths from 8" – 11" using a miter saw.
• Following the manufacturer’s instructions, use the PVC cement to glue the caps to the bottoms of the pipes. This guarantees that no water will escape the pipes through the bottom. Set them aside to dry.
  
• On your computer, resize each photo to fit a specific pipe piece. You want to make each photo tall enough and wide enough to wrap around its designated pipe. Print the photos out onto plain paper using a laser printer.
• Soak the images in water. While the images soak, Remove the image from water and gently run your fingers down to remove the excess water.
  
• Coat the outside of your first pipe in Mod Podge. Apply the image to the pipe and use your fingers to smooth out bubbles. Add Mod Podge to seal the ends of the paper where there is overlap. Repeat for each pipe and let dry
• Use two Forstner bits to drill recesses into the wood plaque so that each pipe is seated. While this step is optional, it gives the project a more finished look and provides extra stability.
  
• Paint the wood plaque with acrylic paint and let dry.
• Give the photo vases a sealing coat of Mod Podge. When that's dry, trim away any excess paper from the tops and bottoms.
• Glue the tubes to the base using E-6000. Add some glue between the pipes for stability if necessary. Let dry completely before using.
  

Notes

Step 1: If you purchase your PVC pipe from the home improvement store, you can ask them to cut it for you there (then you won’t need a saw).

Step 2: If you don’t plan to put water in the vases (like if you’re using fake flowers), you can skip this step.

Step 3: You can also play a little bit with the tint of each picture to provide some contrast and a more vintage look.

You need to use laserjet for this project if you are going to successfully decoupage without wrinkles. Otherwise when you soak the image in the next step, the ink will run.

Step 4: This is the best way to apply images printed on laserjet to round surface with no wrinkles. You’ll be surprised how well it works.

Step 9: My suggestion is that you cluster the pipes closer together so they touch each other to provide a little extra stability.

Some further thoughts on this project:

1. I think next time I will paint the tops of the PVC pipes for a more finished look.
2. It occurred to me that this could become a very adaptable thing. If you used a thicker base and drilled deeper holes you could skip gluing the tubes in place and just let the base hold them.
   Then you could then decoupage other tubes with colorful graphics or fabric or what have you and, when you wanted to, swap out the tubes to suit your mood!

If you enjoyed this photo craft, you’re going to love these vintage Mod Podge photo transfer vases. You’ll be making glass clings. it’s really fun.