Have you ever found yourself looking for the perfect “piece” to fit a certain area in your home with no luck? This is how my search for a table centerpiece went until I landed on a great find at an antique market called “Vintage Market Days.” To my surprise, it wasn’t a shiny, silver or gold antique, but an old and dirty piece of wood called a SUGAR MOLD. You know me, I love to repurpose and up cycle, so here we go with a new project; Decorating vintage style with a sugar mold and grain sack stripes.

I love a good antique market, but I tend to get a little overwhelmed at all the stuff.
There is so much “junk,” literally junk, that I find myself stressing out until I find something of value.
I kept coming back to this vintage sugar mold.
They had TONS of sugar molds for sale, but I just couldn’t decided if I really needed it. It was covered in dirt, and dinged up, so I couldn’t decided if it was really “table” worthy.
Since it was decently priced, I decided to buy this SUGAR MOLD and add a few grain sack stripes to give it a vintage vibe.
At first glance, all vintage sugar molds look dingy and dirty. Well, let me backtrack.
Yes, all vintage items are a little banged up and show some age, but all the sugar molds I’ve ever seen always look pretty rough. I didn’t know if I could “decorate” it enough to want to display it as a beautiful centerpiece.
I knew I needed to create a table worthy sugar mold, but I couldn’t figure out how to turn this vintage piece into a show stopper centerpiece.
My new Vintage Sugar Mold
So let’s start at the beginning. Here she is, in all her raw glory:


This was still a great vintage piece but not ready for a table centerpiece, yet.
I still felt like it needed something to dress it up.
Since I’ve been eyeing grain sacks lately, I figured why not paint some GRAIN SACK STRIPES?
Honestly, eeeerrrrbody is into a grain sack stripe these days, or so it seems! I can’t go wrong with painting a few of these right?
One thing to note; I got my SUGAR MOLD at a vintage market, but you can find them on the internet.
Materials for decorating the new sugar mold:
- sugar mold
- paint pen
- hot glue gun
- greenery of your choice
- greenery styrofoam (or pom poms, lol)
- painters tape
Painting grain sack stripes on the sugar mold
I figured the best way to make a stripe on the wood would be with painters tape and a paint pen.

After gathering some inspiration from a photo, I decided what type of grain sack stripe I would make.

After the first stripe was painted, I was a little worried. It just didn’t look right. I was so afraid I had messed up my new vintage piece.
I kept painting the grain sack stripes on the sugar mold and told myself it would look good.


And it was!
After I painted the stripes, I lightly sanded the SUGAR MOLD. I sanded it so the new striped wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. The mold was obviously a little old, and the stripes were bright and new. Here it is after I sanded it lightly.

My next step was to decorate! I figured I could decorate with some existing greenery I already had around the house.

I hot glued the greenery inside the pom poms instead of using styrofoam (I didn’t have any).
Sugar Mold Decor





You see my bakery sign? You can see more pictures and a post about the DIY vintage Bakery Sign here.
The great thing about using sugar molds as a centerpiece is that you can change up the greenery depending on the season.
I hope this has given you a few ideas of how to DECORATE VINTAGE STYLE WITH A SUGAR MOLD.
Even though I worried this piece wouldn’t be “table” worthy, I think it turned out OK. Sometimes the ugliest ducks turn out to be beautiful swans!
Lindsey**