3 Easy Ways to Make Copper Patina (Green Verdigris with Household Ingredients!)

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In this post, I’m sharing 3 ways to make copper patina – subtle, green and blue. And would you believe that you’ve probably got all the ingredients in your home already? Kitchen chemistry is so much fun! 

by Robin

Last week we shared our big, fun ideas for the ugliest room in our house.  Our old basement laundry room is being transformed into our new cozy, industrial underground pub and hobby room.

It’s a room that I’m really excited about because it’s a space we can have so much fun in!

It will be fun to play in when we’re done, but also we’re having a blast creating some really interesting DIY projects to make it come to life.  (You can check out our whole vision for our basement bar and craft room here.)

The first area of the room we’re tackling is the staircase.

Last week you saw the BEFORE: our stairs in their great-grandma chic glory. Right now they’re covered in yellowing sheet vinyl top to bottom, with some very functional glued on vinyl nosing.

When our basement bathroom was being photographed last year for Better Homes and Gardens magazine the photographer’s assistant nailed it: “Wow! I feel like I’m going down my grandparent’s actual basement stairs here.” I’m sure it was one of his more impressive shoots. (And I laughed to cover my embarrassment.)

We’re finally ready for our stair makeover – and this is project #1.  Our vision is stained wood treads and eye-catching risers.  These will be copper stair risers!

And not fresh, shiny new copper. They’re going to be old-world aged copper with the green verdigris patina that I love. 

3 Easy Verdigris Copper Patina Recipes

The first part of my job was to figure out how to patina copper sheets. I needed to experiment to find the perfect copper patina chemical formula.

We bought enough of these copper sheets to cover our stair risers. They’re a great size, perfect thickness for our idea and cut really easily!

I decided to experiment with the off-cut bits to get the patina just right without wasting anything. I did three experiments with stuff I already had at home (or borrowed from my friend Judy because our shed was full of demo stuff for the dump.)

1. Subtle Copper Patina Recipe

2. How to turn copper green

3. Blue Patina on Copper

If you want to learn even more ways to make copper patina – and every single thing there is to know about copper – check out this site. 

I didn’t show a few more recipes that they discuss above, like one with boiled eggs and a couple with ammonia.  (I am weirdly odour sensitive – and avoid using scented products for fear of triggering headaches or migraines – so I chose the least stinky options.)  The egg one seemed way too involved for me to want to even try.

So far my plan for our copper stair risers is to do a mixture of the finishes. 

I’m going to do recipe #1 to dull the shiny copper – for this I’ll soak the pieces.  Then I’m going to use the other two finishes in certain areas of each riser. I’m going to try:

• pooling the solution in large sections,
• using droppers to create random patterns, and
• spritz some areas with a misting bottle.

Each copper sheet has two sides – so I’ll have double the choice of riser for the final stair makeover. Room for error gives me much more confidence to play!

I’m excited and nervous about how this will all turn out. The sweet spot for really interesting creative projects, no? 

Update: Here’s our completed DIY Copper Stair Risers project!

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You can find all of our beautiful – and budget – Craft and DIY ideas here!

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