Make a plain glass vase simply fabulous, and very this year, with glass paints, from any good art shop or suppliers, says stylist Suzie Clegg

• We created this gorgeous swirl pattern using a combination of outliner paints and transparent colours.
• First we drew a design on to the glass. You can either draw the shape freehand or you could sketch an outline on the glass with a semi-permanent pen.
• It's a good idea to rough out any design first on a piece of paper and then copy it onto the vase but, if you're feeling confident, you can draw an outline directly onto the glass.
• Next use the special outliner glass paint to follow your design, in this case the swirls, and let it dry. This then allows you to fill in between the swirls with any colour you choose. Here we've chosen to fill in alternate spaces with different shades of green and blue.

To make sure your designs last, allow them to dry for 24 hours and then bake in the oven for 40 minutes at 160°C (these instructions may vary depending on the make of the glass paint – always read the label).

Other great ideas

Here are some other great ideas for decorative vases that make unique pieces for your own home or are ideal as gifts for friends and family. There are many different types of glass paint, each giving a different finish, available from any good art shop or suppliers. To get the range of looks in this picture, we used a combination of glass lacquer, Plasti-Kote frosting spray, outliner paints and transparent colours.

Left: Small bud vase from Tesco Extra, £1 each

• To get this effect, use masking tape to divide the vase into stripes, so you can paint the glass in between.
• Spacing the stripes is easy as you can just move the masking tape to where you think looks good. Use as many or as few colours as you wish.
• The glass might need more than one coat so be careful to let the paint dry fully first before starting on the second coat.

Middle: Curved vase from Tesco Extra, £5 each

• Draw a shape or design that you like – here we've made pretty petal shapes with outliner paint.
• Then fill in the middle of the shape with whichever colour you choose. Try mixing two colours, or doing alternate shapes in a combination of different colours.
• This method gives a more solid coverage of the glass and a density to the colour of the paint.

Right: Tall column vase from Tesco Extra, £6 each

• The frosting spray that helped make this last design is available from any good hardware store and is very easy to use.
• We again used masking tape to create the striped effect on the glass and it acted like a stencil so once sprayed and the tape removed you're left with this lovely frosted effect.
• Once you have masked up the vase use the frosting spray to build up layers to create the desired effect.
• Allow the spray to dry and then remove the masking tape from the vase and you will be left with this design.