How To Make a Painted Brick Paver For Your Garden

Customize your garden with a personalized painted brick paver. Follow this tutorial to make your own custom paver.

Spring is here and with it comes that seemingly never ending “to-do” project list. One of the projects on my list is to plant a vegetable garden with the kids. We have a corner in our backyard that needs an overhaul and would make the perfect spot for a vegetable garden. This spot receives a lot of direct sunshine and is already framed in like a raised bed garden. Currently it is filled with various flowers with stones for the mulch. The stones will be removed so we can start planting.

Since this will be the kids vegetable garden I wanted it to have something special in it besides vegetables that reflect their own unique personalities. What I came up with was personalized painted brick pavers to add to the garden! We can use the pavers as stepping stones or even small borders within the garden.

The kids and I just finished studying the book of Genesis through our Community Bible Study (CBS) class and thought it would be cool to use this book as inspiration for our paver project. I challenged the kids to select either their favorite verse, an attribute of God or something they are thankful for to use while decorating their brick.

Here is how we painted and decorated our pavers:

Custom Painted Brick Paver Tutorial

SUPPLIES:

1.       Brick paver – we got our bricks from Home Depot for about $0.89/ea. We used the red pavers but you could use the gray ones too. Any size will do. Just select the paver size that will work best with your project.

2.       Interior / Exterior semi gloss enamel white paint

3.       Foam paint brush

4.       Sharpie markers

5.       Spray acrylic sealer (I used Aleene’s brand in matte finish)

6.       Newspaper

HOW TO TUTORIAL

The first step was to wipe off the bricks with a damp cloth getting all the dust and other debris off of the surface of the brick paver. After you wipe the paver clean put the brick on top of several pieces of newspaper and apply your first coat of paint to the brick.

I painted all sides of our brick except the bottom then waited for the paint to dry, flipped the brick over and painted the bottom side. It is important to let the paint cure according to the directions on the paint you use. 

Once the paint is good and dry you could sand the edges to give it a “rustic/antique” look or you can start decorating it.

Now it is time to decorate the bricks! We used sharpie markers in a variety of colors to decorate our bricks. I have a lot of cool plastic letter, number and shape templates I let the kids use while decorating their bricks. 

If you are brave and have a steady hand you could just free hand your design. The sky is truly the limit here! The best part is that there are 6 sides to each brick that can be decorated!

Be careful not to touch the bricks where you draw with the sharpie markers since the ink is probably still wet and will smudge.

Once the decorating is complete it is time to seal the brick along with the decorations and base paint coat. In a well ventilated area (outside is best) spray the acrylic sealer to all sides of the brick except the bottom. Once the sides you sprayed are dry flip the brick over and spray the bottom of the brick with the sealer. 

You may want to put two coats of the sealer on the brick to ensure it is weather proof if you intend to have your brick paver displayed outside.

Here is our finished project!

Go on, give this simple project a try! If you like this I’m sure you will love the ebook I wrote, Secret Garden Crafts: 10 Nature Inspired Craft Projects, that includes 10 simple and fun craft projects. You can get your copy on Amazon today! (affiliate)

 

Find it HERE on Amazon