Make Your Mark...On a Plant Pot...

          One summer I went to Sweden on an extended trip. It was an unforgettable adventure featuring abundances of weird sausage plates, 30$ dollar kamikaze shots, bizarre Scandinavian night clubs, and a Nas concert in a huge open park just hours before my flight back.

   Back home, in a less exciting Portland, I had a glorious kitchen full of tomatoes, peppers, and herbs graciously about to bear the fruit of my high hopes. Starting tomatoes and peppers from seed in Maine indoors is no easy task. They habitually become too leggy and mine had fought a bitter battle for limited window space & sunlight but they had prevailed.

       While In Sweden I had trusted my apartment, mail, AND my precious plants to a friend who was sick of staying at her parents house before she moved cross country.  After several calls back home to my makeshift "house sitter" went unreturned I feared the worst...and I was right.  The sweltering heat of a closed up third floor apartment had stolen my cherry tomatoes and my green thumb for that summer...to be a bit dramatic. 

     In a forced and sheepish attempt to apologize for the agricultural mishap, my scatterbrained, plant killer friend procured some new greenery in an ugly pot. Uggghhh. Not one to throw things away, no matter how ugly something might be, I kept it. But today I decided to give the pot and some others a makeover. And yes, we are still friends.

      The Offending Plant Pot

       Of course it won't be an ordinary craft paint and polka dot plant pot spruce up. I am going to use the chalkboard paint I purchased to make chalkboard pots. This way I can remind myself of re-potting dates, type of plant, and origin of possession. Oh, and maybe I will write a reminder for Leon to be more careful when vacuuming and just plain walking near the plants. My Terra Cotta graveyard needs no more additions. 

 So here's the basic directions because it's a basic project. Get to it, Summer is peeking round' that corner, promise. 

                      

•  Spray your clean, dry plant pot with chalkboard spray. Decorate as you see fit.  You will need heavy coats as the porous terra cotta is thirsty.   

             It was good idea to give the ugly duckling pot a paint job hoping to turn it into a swan, however, it didn't work. I underestimated my loathing for the color combination of black and red. So, in the end it's still ugly, but at least I tried. Here is the repeat offender...

• The whole endeavor wasn't a complete bust. See for yourself, I might not believe me if I were you after the last pot re-decorating disaster.