Painted Terracotta Pots

First of all, can I say I am blown away at how fast the Spring went by? I feel like a few weeks ago I was jumping for joy at the sound of birds chirping and little green buds appearing on all the trees. And now it's officially mid-May. June will be here before we know it!

Another thing that seemed to come out of nowhere was Mother's Day! I hope you all had a great weekend celebrating your mothers or being a mother! I know this is a bit late, but I'm going to share with you a craft I worked on over the weekend for my mother and mother-in-law. (And I ended up making a few for myself!)

I was flipping through a Crate & Barrel catalog a few weeks ago totally drooling over all the pretty things in there, but I certainly would never spend $19.99 on a terracotta pot that you can buy at Lowe's for under $2.

Crate and Barrel

So, I set out to make my own Crate & Barrel look-alike terracotta pots!

You'll Need:

Terracotta pots// Michael's and Lowe's have them or any gardening supply store

Paint Brushes// I used black foam brushes from Michael's for $0.47 each. 

Acrylic Paint// There was a sale at Michael's for 20% off paints, so I got mine there

and patience! Trust me. 

1. Draw your design on in pencil--very lightly. I chose to mimic Crate and Barrel's design, but you can do whatever design you want. I also did two of my pots with the recently popular "paint dipped" look and still used a pencil to mark where I'd separate the colors. 

2. Paint one color at a time. Since some of my colors were light, I needed to paint 3 coats for those. Other colors that were darker needed only 2 coats. (hence, the patience) I didn't worry about making my lines too perfect, but if you want your design to come out very clean, I'd suggest using a very thin brush to paint the outside and fill with a thicker brush. 

Also, make sure to let dry completely before painting a different color (or you'll end up with paint on your fingers and the wrong color in the wrong places. 

3. Apply coats until you achieve the desired effect and voila! Painted pots. Then, fill with whatever you want, pencils & pens, cutlery, a flower or whatever you want! I use them to hold succulents for my mother and mother-in-law and for the succulents I had purchased several weeks ago. 

What did you do for Mother's Day? 

Also, stay tuned for a post on some updates we made to our porch!!