I know that the end of summer is coming quicker than we all want it. I for one fee like a lot of my summer has been wasted - no pool (COVID) - stores closing way to early to go window shopping (COVID) - no summertime walks with friends (COVID). But, before it all ends I wanted to share with you my painted pots for this year.
I actually had quite a few of these little pots I had been collecting. I had a few different sizes from before I moved out on my own, and then my condo came with a lot as well. I also bought some - they had ran out at Walmart so I went to a local farm store instead and I think they were actually a bit cheaper there. My first step was to thoroughly clean them all. I put the dirt in our large planter and cleaned these. I then let them dry.
This first one I painted with just cheap acrylic paint with a paintbrush. I know there is specific pot painting paint, but I wanted to use what I had on hand (COVID). It actually worked great, I was able to paint it calmly and just go from one coat to the next, and the black acrylic stayed on the best out of anything really.
I then tried out my silver spray paint. Although this worked fine, some of it has started to want to come off. I enjoyed the ease of just spraying this and being done. However all of my pots needed multiple coats and the spray paint ones took a lot longer to dry than the acrylic ones did. So, it ended up taking all day because I would get distracted doing something else.
Then I started to get adventurous in my painting. I started with a silver base.
Took the very high tech rubber bands. (You can find large packages of these at the dollar store, home office stores, or in the light fixtures at my work when they got stuck in the rubberband wars.)
The trick here is to be as haphazard as possible. Just put them on in a random fashion and don't think about it much. The more twisted and crooked they are the better.
Now to spray it black. The inside stayed silver, which I really liked the look of. Just make sure to keep it down and it will work. A side note, I like boxes to spray paint in on the balcony. The paint mostly stays outside but sometimes tries to come in. The COVID masks however help a lot with this as you spray, a trick I am not giving up.
When it is dry just remove the rubber bands. Do note - they will not be reusable, in fact they look like they have been sitting next to a light bulb for months.
Pot the plant and enjoy. Here I have a unpainted bottom on it, but I have since painted a silver one. The thing I like about having a black/white/silver color scheme is they are easy to mix and match.
I then decided to do a white pot. The white acrylic is very odd because it doesn't stay white. This is right after I painted it, but as time goes on it pulls out the orange from underneath, and turns yellow and runs, and just looks odd. But, I did have a lot of fun with this one. After I did a white base coat I took the sponge brushes from the dollar store and painted black dots all over in a random fashion. It was a lot of fun and turned out great.
Here are a couple of others that I did. I tried the white spray paint on the top one, but it didn't do much difference, you can see it starting to yellow already. For that one I had some vinyl that said "Home Sweet Home" that I put on it. Then for the black one I just put some white strips on it, very organic and just how I felt like it. It came out very graphic and I fee like it just completes the look.
This is my super creative looks. I have a terrarium I got from Ikea which lives back in the shade, so I put fake plants in them since I doubted anything would grow. But, I just love the look of how mix and matched they are. Some are black with white tops, or vice versa. I have poka dots on some of the black ones. And then right in front you can see I drew on one with a silver sharpie to create a fun pattern.
I just love my pots and unfortunately I think I may have to repaint some of them next year, but I am okay with that, another fun project and maybe I can get the white ones correct next time.
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