Give your old patio umbrella a NEW look for under $5!

I'm sorry that I don't have a "before" photo to share with you but you can take my word that it was really really faded. I first tried to dye it a pretty fushia, using liquid rit dye and leaving the material in the dye bath/bucket for almost a week, but them everything faded in the sun within a few days!

So one day I'm sitting at the kitchen table wondering what can I do, as new umbrellas were $70 or more and there was nothing wrong with this one other than the lack of color....

I spotted my can of red krylon fushion spray paint that I had used with this project, looked at what it can paint...metal, plastic, glass, ...wicker. Wicker is semi-porous like fabric right? Couldn't hurt to try right?  So I stood on a plastic chair, the very one you see in the photo and rotated the umbrella as I sprayed. It was a fairly warm and breezy day and the fumes drifted up and away from my house, so that was good. I was done in minutes and now I have a colorful patio umbrella and that brightens up my garden and makes eating outside a festive event!

What do you think? Do you have a patio umbrella in need of a makeover? What color will you make yours?