How to Paint Terracotta Pots

Plants are the perfect finishing touches for any and every room in your home. While it might be challenging to find the right vessels to fit your decor, don’t let that deter you. It’s so easy to create custom flower pots that are just your style with a little patience and some craft paint. Here’s everything you need to know to make these yourself!

Gather Your Materials

The great thing about this project is that the materials are so affordable. For the cost of one decorative planter from your favorite home store, you can make three or four of your own custom versions. Here’s what you’ll need and where to find it all:

• Terracotta pots (Michaels has a variety of sizes for great prices)
• Craft paint (I love Martha Stewart’s satin finish paints—there’s a ton of color options)
• Painter’s tape
• Rubber bands
• Paintbrush
• Foam brush
• Plants

Figuring Out Your Game Plan

As tempting as it is to go into this project with a childless sense of wonder, it’s not the best way. We promise. You’ll want to pull some inspiration, figure out what colors you want to use, and think about what you want to paint on each pot before you get started. Also, keep in mind that a nice tight color palette helps to tie the whole look together.

In my experience, unless you’re really great with a paintbrush, it helps to use guides to get straight lines. Since I wanted to do stripes

Apply the Paint

To create stripes, use two rubber bands and paint in the center. Be sure to wait in between coats to let the paint dry so it doesn’t pull. Here are a few tips on the paint:

• Lighter colors will need more coats to cover the terracotta.
• For thin stripes, use a paintbrush to fill in between your rubber bands. The foam brush works really well for large surfaces because it helps to minimize brush strokes.
• When you’re using the painter’s tape or the rubber bands, remove them while the paint is still wet.

Let the Paint Dry

It shouldn’t take too long! Craft paint dries really fast. To layer colors, let the coats dry in between and then paint over them. It’s better to layer dark colors over light colors instead of the reverse.

Add in Your Plants

There’s two ways you can do this. One, you can put the plants directly inside the pots. In this case, you might want to consider sealing the inside with something waterproof. Otherwise the Terracotta will absorb some of the moisture. You’ll also want to purchase the accompanying tray to place underneath each pot to catch extra water.

The second option is to leave plants in their little plastic containers they come in and then slip them inside the planters. Then when you go to water, you can pull .