How to handpaint a plant container using acrylic paints?

The only thing I love more than DIY projects is a combination of DIY projects and recycling or upcycling. Today it's time for a little up-cycling. How to handpaint a plant container using acrylic paints? Well, this one is actually pretty simple. All you need is a bit of acrylic paint and a brush. Well, actually you don't even need a brush. You can apply the acrylic paint with whatever you like. You wait for the colour to dry and that's pretty much it.  I'll give you a few extra tips later on, at the end of this post. First things first.

Why would one want to paint/repaint a plant container in the first place? Maybe because you want it to match the colour of your surroundings? You know aesthetic reasons. That's the only reason I can think of. I wanted my plaint container to look nicer, and that was basically my motivation.I actually tried finding a ceramic container for this lovely lavender plant I bought but I was worried that it might bet broken. This lavender is an outside plant, so I placed it on my balcony. So, the chance  the wind might knock it over is not out of the question.

Anyhow, this is what the plant container looked like originally. It was brown. Boring. I tried looking for nicer looking ones, but didn't find anything in the shops. The selection of plastic containers wasn't impressive at all. As I explained, I didn't want to replant this lavender in a ceramic container because I was worried it might get broken.  I bought a lot of cute ceramic containers for my house plans, though. I will shown them some other time. A few of my plants have actually perished because it is too hot in my home. The living area and kitchen seem to critical areas, plants do better in other areas of my house. I suppose there is such a thing as too much sunshine. Maybe it is the combination of air conditioning and sunshine that kills them? I may need to plant only cacti and succulents in my kitchen and living area. I can always keep my flowers in other areas of my home.

 I wanted my container to look like it was painted over with wide brushes if you know what I mean. I wanted that 'painted' look. That is why I applied paint with a wide brush, but you can choose whatever style you want. It all comes down to what kind of effect you want to achieve. Do you want it to look shabby chic? Do you want it to look minimalist? The way you will apply acrylic paints will depend on that. Moreover, you need to decide how many colours do you want? Just one? Or two? Or maybe different shades of the same colour? If you're feeling especially creative, you can always add some glitter or special touches. If you glue some stones to the plant container, you can even achieve a mosaic look, but we will leave that for some other post.  

What I decided to do was to mix white acrylic paint with green one. Originally I planned it to be all white, but then I changed my mind and decided that I want the container to match the plant. Have you ever noticed how lavender has this particular shade of green that is almost silver? It's always fascinated me, not just the flower, but the colour of the plant itself. I've always loved lavender btw. When I was a kid, I worked in lavender fields. We would harvest lavender the old fashion way, not with machines (that would be impossible because of our rocky terrain anyway). It was hard work, probably not much different from cotton picking or any other similar field work, but in a way it was also oddly satisfying. 

 I did a very similar home decor project recently, one in which I painted a jar and turned it into a plant container, you can check it out (here) if you haven't. Initially I planted a succulent in this jar but since somebody didn't water it while I was in hospital for a long time, the plant died. On the upper note, I finally managed to successfully replant a rosemary and this jar proved to be a charm. For some reason, rosemary wouldn't stick when I tried replanting it before, but this time it worked. Good news. I still have to design the exact plant arrangement for our enormous balcony. We were planning to plant orange and lemon trees, but we will probably wait for the Spring. Right now, this rosemary and lavender are all I have. It's not a bad place to start. 

from this post (a similar DIY project)

                  How to handpaint a plant container using acrylic paints? (step by step instructions)


1. Place the plant container on something that you won't miss terribly (that is if you get acrylic paints on it). You can put it on a sheet of paper, old newspapers, a plastic bag etc.

2. Apply the acrylic paints. You can keep it in one shade or colour or you can mix and match as I did. To apply the paint you can use a brush or a sponge. You can also use napkins if you want the layer of paint to be thinner. You can pretty much use whatever you want. Even your hands will do, but you will have to wash your hands repeatedly as acrylic paint doesn't come off easily once it's dried.

3. Wait for the colour to dry. Once the colour is dried, this DIY project is over! Place the container where you had initially intended it to be.

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