Pots of fun

You can use more than vases to display fresh garden flowers or house plants. Try one of these projects in your home or on the patio.

Florist's Buckets
Take a few galvanized pots from the hardware store or garden centre, "dip" in popsicle-bright colours, and hang them in a row from the fence or use them as centrepieces.

Here's how:
1. Clean the buckets thoroughly. Mask off the upper 1/3 of each bucket. Lightly sand below the tape and wipe the bucket clean.

2. Paint the sanded area with metal primer, then two or more coats of enamel paint, letting each coat dry before applying the next coat.

3. To hang buckets that do not have hanging holes or handles, drill a 5mm hole approximately 1cn from the top edge. Hang the buckets from small cup hooks.

Coffeepot Bouquet
Take an old enamel coffeepot that has spent its younger years on the campfire and allow it to retire to a place of honor on the kitchen table.

Here's how:
If your coffeepot is rusty and you do not want rust to show through, prime the metal and paint it white as described above. Do not sand the finish. If you want some rust to show through, lightly sand the paint in random areas.

1. Mix blue and white 2:1. Thin the paint with water until it is the consistency of ink. Paint wide vertical stripes around the pot using a sponge brush and spacing the stripes fairly evenly.

2. Using undiluted blue and a liner brush, paint a thin stripe to the left of each wide stripe. Let the paint dry.

3. Mix yellow and white 1:1. Thin the paint with water until it is the consistency of ink. Using the flat brush, paint horizontal stripes around the coffeepot, spacing the lines fairly evenly.

4. After the paint is dry, seal it with spray sealer.

Potted Delight
For this project all you will need is a terracotta pot, two shades of craft paint, a motif and polyurethane varnish.

Here's how:
1. Apply a base coat to the pot of one coat of polyurethane varnish and leave to dry.

2. Pour a small amount of terracotta and ochre paint onto a saucer and drag your brush through both colours before applying vertical strokes to the sides of the pot and use horizontal strokes around the rim of the pot.

3. Leave to dry and then apply a further coat of polyurethane varnish.

4. Cut out your chosen motifs and apply varnish to the wrong side, immediately positioning this onto the pot. Leave to dry.

5. Add two coats of polyurethane varnish and leave to dry.

To finish:
Draw a 'dot and dash' border around the motif with a black permanent marker, and add your topic to the rim.

  source: meredith publishing / home-dzine.co.za / cathleen smith