Love where you live. Sign up for our newsletter

DIY Retry: How to Customize Almost Anything with This DIY Water Slide Decal Technique

by on Dec 16, 2014

Photo: Brittni Mehlhoff

A long while back, there was a project here on Curbly, for DIY water slide decals, that I thought was really cool. I had never tried the technique before, so I gave it a go and documented the results for something I’ve dubbed a DIY Retry. Want to see the results?   

Vinyl shapes and letter stickers near orange bowls.
Photo: Brittni Mehlhoff

I tried out this decal DIY on a few small bowls. And now that I’ve tested it out, I’m addicted to the process.

Water slide decal in a white bowl.
Photo: Brittni Mehlhoff

It’s way easier that it seems. I pretty much followed this tutorial, from Curbly, to the letter. I had my shapes and letters printed on a laser printer at my local Fed Ex, sprayed them with fixative, cut them out, put them in a bowl of water, and then attached each decal to the bowls.

The only thing I changed slightly was that I switched out the decal spray that was suggested as part of the original tutorial, for clear, matte finish, sealer. It worked just as well as the decal spray and will most likely be a little easier to find.

Full tutorial here: DIY Water Slide Decals.

Here are the results from my take on this water slide technique…

color cups with letters
Photo: Brittni Mehlhoff
Two orange and brown bowls stacked on top of each other with red, green, and white objects in them.
Photo: Brittni Mehlhoff
Hand holding orange mug with black dots with no handles with cookies inside.
Photo: Brittni Mehlhoff
Some pink fowers in a red vase on a red book on top of a yellow book next to two orange bowls with cookies in them.
Photo: Brittni Mehlhoff

A set of these bowls would be a great Christmas gift for a friend or family member (or yourself). But I think this idea would be great for vases and other objects as well. You can really use this technique for almost anything.

Hope you’ll give it a try.

An image shows the Google logo text.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

2 Comments

  1. This is fantastic. I’ve been trying to find plant pots that I like; now I’ll just make some!