e.louise: Fancy Pots

I love plants. And gardens. And pretty much anything green and flowery. Several years ago, I attempted to sprucen up some plain terra cotta pots with some acrylic paint. They've held up pretty well because they house indoor plants, but I doubt they would have lasted as long outdoors. Then I found this lovely picture via Modish.

Aren't they gorgeous? Jena posted a great tutorial on how to prep & paint terra cotta pots so that they withstand the outdoor elements. I think I may have to put this tutorial to use this weekend, if the weather stays nice.

Here is my version of a fancy pot. I made some similar to these to hold the table assignments for our wedding reception. (If you follow me here, you've probably already seen this tutorial :) )

Materials:
Terra cotta pots, ribbon, hot glue gun

Tutorial:
Start by hot gluing one end of the ribbon to the pot (picture 1), then pull the ribbon straight down along the side of your pot, holding it on the glued edge, so it doesn’t move around (2). Make sure once more that the ribbon is straight, then place a glue line along the bottom edge of the pot (3) and press the center of the ribbon down first, then pull either side further in and press down so that the ribbon curves to the pot (4). I should also note that I left the ribbon on the spool while gluing it to the pot and only cut after the end of the ribbon was glued to the bottom of the pot.

Repeat steps 1-4 for each quadrant of the pot. I glued the first two across from each other, and likewise with the second two so that there was even spacing amongst all the strips:

Then repeat steps 1-4, gluing two ribbon strips between each quadrant strip:

Do this until your entire pot is covered. I personally like the overall look of darker ribbon because it is less see through, but that’s just me. After the pots were covered, I went back and hot glued these thinner ribbons using the same method.

I would love to plant some herbs in these tiny pots, although I'm not sure how the ribbon would hold up against moist dirt- I don't want it to get moldy. I may have to line them with something (a plastic bag? foil?) before using them as planters.

Or they would also make for some cute containers for my craft room.