How to Paint Exterior Plastic Decorative Items

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Using an artist's brush to paint accent colors on a plastic pink flamingo.

To paint exterior plastic items around your home:

1. Lightly sanding the surface.
2. Wipe off any sanding dust.
3. Apply several light coats of spray paint that’s made for painting plastic.
4. Paint accent colors by applying spray paint to a paper plate, then using an artist’s brush to paint the contrasting colors by hand.

Watch this video to find out more.

Further Information

• How to Paint Anything Outside (article)
• How to Paint Plastic or Vinyl Shutters (article)
• Painting Plastic Laminate Countertops (video)

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Danny Lipford: An e-mail from Scott asked, “Can I successfully paint plastic items on the exterior of my home?”

There are a lot of things that are plastic around our house these days, like our planters, plastic chairs, maybe garden gnomes, I’m sure all of you have a pink flamingo.

Well, you can successfully paint things on the exterior of your house that are plastic by, first of all, you want to lightly sand the surface, then you want to wipe it down. And then, the real important thing is to use a paint that is formulated for painting plastic.

There’s a lot of it out there. And like any type of spraying that you may be doing, you want to shake the can well and you want to put several light coats on, allowing it to dry in between.

And when you have little accents like this, here’s a good trick for you. Instead of trying to tape all of this off and spray it, just spray a little bit of the paint right on a paper plate. Then use a little artist brush like this to take care of all the little details.