Geranium Painted Garden Pots

Paint your own geraniums on clay pots for beautiful blooms all year round. This painting tutorial by Vicki O'Dell walks you through how to paint geraniums on the pots. These painted pots would make a beautiful Mother's Day gift.
 

Materials:

• Clay Pots
• Natural sponge
• Round paint brush
• Optional (Clay Pot Sealer)

Acrylic Paints

• Americana - Light Buttermilk
• Crafter's Acrylic - Luscious Lemon
• Crafter's Acrylic - Pine Needle
• Americana - Goliage Green
• Americana - Napa Red
• Folk Art - Engine Red

Instructions:

To begin, you may wish to coat your pots with a Clay Pot Sealer. If you don't you may want to only put plants into the pots that are inside other, smaller pots. Otherwise, the water will leach into the paint and possibly cause it to peel off.

Paint the pots with a coat or two of any light, off white color acrylic paint. I used Light Buttermilk. You may need two coats. Paint down inside the pot about an inch or two if you like.

Dampen the sponge with a light yellow or Luscious Lemon paint. Dab the sponge, lightly onto and all over the Light Buttermilk base coat. You just want a light lacy look, not complete coverage.

Next, use another area of the sponge to paint Engine Red geraniums. Just dip the sponge into the paint and dab it a couple of times on a paper towel to remove any globs of paint. Pat the sponge onto the pot to make a circle of "flowers".

Find an unused corner of the sponge and make small leaves with the Foliage Green, or light green, paint.

Let the paint dry.

With the round brush and a little Napa Red, or a rich burgandy red color, paint little "C's" or commas here and there to define a few flower petals.

Repeat the comma's or "C's" with the Pine Needle or dark green paint on the leaves. Let dry. This is a perfect craft for a wide range of ages and skill levels and smaller clay pots can be found for $1. That makes this a PERFECT gift, summer camp, classroom or day care craft!