Showing posts with label Garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Garden. Show all posts

Address Flower Pot

This pot is so simple, but I LOVE it on my front steps! I needed to make this pot for 3 reasons.
1. The neighbor girls were planting flowers in their little area of our townhouse yards and I couldn't let their gardens be cuter than mine. I try to hide it, but I do have a *little* bit of a competitive streak!
2. I've been inspired {like everyone else} by numbers and the combination of black and white. Neither of these really go with my decor, so this was an easy way to try it out.
3. We have 9 houses in our townhouse complex and it is a little confusing trying to figure out which door goes to which house. I was getting knocks on my door at midnight. This is not a good thing when your soldier has been out training for the last week and every little sound in the house already has you on edge. Since I put this little masterpiece out, I haven't had a single late-night knock!

This was super simple to make.
First: Gather Your Supplies
Flower Pot 
Acrylic Paint {I used Folk Art Antique White}
Number Stencil
Razor Blade
Tape
Pencil

For my flower pot, I had grand plans of finding a big heavy pot and spray painting it black. In the end, I found this urn pot at Big Lots for $8 and I loved that it was already black and it was big. It is plastic, but this worked great for me since we move a lot being in the military. It is cheap enough for me to throw away when we move, or light enough for me to clean out and bring with us.

For my stencil, I just found an image I really liked online and enlarged it in Word then printed it out. You can buy stencils already made, but I didn't want to splurge on that when I would only need it once.
Second: Prepare Your Stencil
Next I needed to transfer my stencil on to my pot. My original plan was to rub chalk over the back of my stencil and then trace it onto my pot, like Chella did here. But, it was 11 at night and I didn't have any chalk. So, I carefully cut out my stencil using the razor blade. Since my pot was curved, I cut apart each number and then taped it onto the pot, making sure it was straight along the bottom edge. Then I simply used a pencil and traced around the edges. I removed the stencil and, using a small paint brush, filled in the numbers. It was actually easier than I thought it would be to paint the numbers. I think the key is to use a small brush. It took 2 coats of paint to really fill in the numbers. After it had dried, I sprayed Krylon Matte Sealer just over the parts that I painted.
Third: Place Outside & Admire
When the pot is done, fill it with pretty flowers, place it in its new home, make the neighbor girls jealous and admire your handy work! I smile every time I walk by it to the front door! :)

While I was outside photographing the new addition to my flower garden, my Little Lady came out and actually wanted me to take pictures of her. I'm never one to turn down a chance to photograph her. She had the day off from school and we had gotten dressed up especially pretty for the day!

Asian Inspired Flower Pots

To get inspiration I always browse through etsy.com to see what's new. For awhile everyone was doing these birds on a branch as wall decals. And I LOVED it, but the look doesn't really go with my current home decor. So I painted these flower pots instead!I found an image that I liked at art.com, converted it to black and white, resized to the desired size to fit my pots and printed. Now I know you are thinking, why didn't she just free hand paint. And that would have been so much easier. I'm not an artist, I can't even paint stick people. So I created this stencil and it worked awesome. I colored chalk on the back of my printed stencil, taped it to my pot, traced over the image leaving the chalk outline on the pot. For these pots I traced over the chalk lines with a black pen and then started painting. I used acrylic paint and then sealed the pots in a semi-gloss. Heidi and I water our flowers every day. My most favorite time of day!