Making Decorative Plant Pots

Decorating a plant pot is a fun, creative project for children to try, which will also help to encourage an interest in growing plants and gardening.

Terracotta plant pots come in all shapes and sizes from any garden centre and are quite cheap. This is a great way to encourage children to let their imagination run riot and design some truly inspirational, colourful masterpieces! It can also teach them about animals, nature and insects if you discuss things which are in the garden and try to recreate them on your pots.

For this project a 14cm high pot was used, however any size would be fine. By decorating a plant pot the children can be creative but also link this to growing plants and gardening. The terracotta pot has been painted first in order to seal it, otherwise water will seep through from the soil and spoil the design. An alternative is to use plastic plant pots.

Once the project is finished you could then plant seeds or a flower in the pot and encourage the children to care for their own plant. However as paper decoration has been used, be careful when placing on a window sill as the colours will fade. You could use the ladybird idea and instead of using paper paint it directly on to the pot if you wished, but remember to leave each coat of paint to dry before painting on the next colour or the colours will merge together.

Children can grow plants in their decorated plant pots and then give them out as gifts for friends and relatives. A matching card and gift tag will make this an ideal gift for a green-fingered friend!

What you need:

• New terracotta plant pot, 14cm high
• White emulsion paint
• Paintbrush
• Red card
• Black card
• Green card
• Wiggly eyes
• Scissors
• PVA glue

Step 1

Cover your work surface with newspaper, protect your clothing and ensure the room is well ventilated. Paint the plant pot all over the outside. Any colour can be used but a lighter colour is best to show the decoration, so white is used here. Try to use thin coats of paint as painting to thickly can cause the paint to run. Put to one side to dry.

Step 2

Cut one circle from red card approx 9cm in diameter, using a cup as a guide. Now cut a slit in the circle to the centre. Over lap the two pieces and glue in place to make a shallow conical shape.

Step 3

Now a 7.5cm diameter circle is needed so use a smaller cup or a mug and place onto black card then draw around with white pencil. Remove the cup and draw six legs and a head.

Step 4

Now cut out carefully. If small children can’t cut the intricate pieces then just cut the body and head and glue strips of card on later for legs. Punch six circles from black card and glue to the red conical shape. Glue the red shape to the black body by applying small amounts of glue around the edge. Now attach two wiggly eyes. You can cut pieces of green card for leaves or grass and secure all to the pot to finish.