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Hydro Flask art: Ashley Hanes

With many different ways to customize personal items, Diamond Bar High School senior Ashley Hanes has taken to painting blooming flowers and crashing waves to customize her Hydro Flasks.

Hanes originally started by painting her own Hydro Flask. Her friends took notice of the design and complimented it, saying they wanted their own personalized bottles. Word about Hanes’ paintings was only spread among her friends until her closest friends convinced her to post her work on her Twitter, @_ashleyannh_.

“I started painting Hydro Flasks a couple of months ago. It was kind of just a hobby. Instead of putting stickers on them, I wanted to try something new,” Hanes said.

Since Hanes posted the painted Hydro Flasks on March 4, the pictures have gained about 14,700 retweets and 84,200 likes. She has gained about 2,500 new followers since.

“On the first day, I posted it late at night so it started off slow. Then, I remember my friends coming over, and we were just hanging out. They said it was going up by the hundreds per minute. Everytime we looked back, it was going up by 100,” Hanes said.

With all of the attention that has surrounded the tweet, Hanes decided to close her direct messages due to the number of requests.

About 150 to 200 people have already asked her to paint their bottles. She has currently painted about 15 bottles amongst her friends. The prices are set by both the size of the Hydro Flask and the complexity of the design requested.

For a 40-oz. bottle, the base price starts at $25 and could increase or decrease depending on the intricacies of the design as well as shipping fees.

Hanes uses acrylic paints on the bottles and covers them with a water-resistant sealant at the end to prevent damage from washing or falling.

Nature scenes, flowers and oceans are recurring designs that Hanes has painted on the water bottles. One of her favorite designs she has painted is a mountain scene as  it was the  bottle that kick-started her popularity.

Some have requested Hanes to surprise them with a design of her own, while others have a specific idea for what they want painted on their Hydro Flask.

She tries to take in as much inspiration from outside sources as possible when designing a surprise Hydro Flask.

When designing for her friends’ Hydro Flasks, she took into account their personality and the things they like, incorporating those ideas into painting speicifc designs onto the bottle.

Hanes plans on opening up an Etsy store to manage the amount of orders that her tweet had garnered. She wants the process to be as a safe and efficient as possible.

She is trying to figure out the logistics of methods customers could use to ship their bottles to her for the design, before shipping the finished product back to them. She also says that she could purchase the bottle for customers and send back the finished design, accounting the price of the bottle and the painting into the total cost.

“I didn’t think it would blow up this much. I did not expect this type of response. It’s really great because it is such a positive response. Everyone is just positive and telling me to keep it going. I love it. I’m very appreciative of it,” Hanes said.

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