As I was decorating my front porch for Fall, I realized that I had no containers, pots or planters for the mums. I’m not much of a gardener, flower or plant person. I mean, I love flowers and plants, but they don’t love me back. I have the brownest thumb ever. So therefore, I don’t have all the accessories, gadgets, pots, planters, etc. But what I do have are three mums (that are still alive – for the most part) for my front porch that need a home. Now I know I’ll plant them soon, hoping they’ll come back next fall, but they won’t. I plant three every year and only ONE has ever come back {sigh}. But in the meantime, I’d like to put them into something decorative for the front porch.
Have you priced the pretty urns, pots and planters lately? Holy moly! I especially like the Zinc ones that I saw at Restoration Hardware, starting at $205. I don’t think that’s in my budget.
Here they are. Pretty, right? Well they should be for $200+
Well, since I don’t have $600 laying around to spend on planters, I came up with an idea to make my own version for next to nothing.
Not too shabby for a buck right? Except the flower IS looking a little shabby : ( I warned you!
My faux zinc planter started life as a popcorn box! Yes, a $1 popcorn container from the dollar store!
You can find lots of faux zinc tutorials on Pinterest, but since this is not a piece of furniture or high end accessory, I went pretty basic with how I did this. I kept it really simple. Simple, cheap and fast. My kind of project. Here’s what I did:
First, I spray painted the sides of the container that have the red printing with white spray paint with primer. I used Rust-Oleum 2x Ultra Cover Paint+Primer. I’m not sure that step was really necessary since I then applied two coats of black acrylic craft paint with a foam brush. But I didn’t want to take the chance that the red would show through.
After the black paint was dry, I applied three coats of metallic silver craft paint. I applied the silver paint with a foam brush, also, but before each coat dried, I rubbed it with a rag to reduce the brush strokes somewhat. And that’s it! Just pop in your healthy, happy, vibrant flower (not a half-dead, sad one like mine). And if anyone has any tips on keeping mums alive, I’d love to hear them!
Before I came up with this idea, I spray painted one of these containers with chalkboard paint. You can see it in the photo in my Fall Front Porch post.
I love doing Knock-off projects. Come on over to Create & Babble and take a look. I especially like the Pottery Barn Mercury Glass Vase knock-off. I wasn’t sure that one would turn out, but it did! Oh, and while you’re there, I’d love for you to read about the Ride of My Life. Dan and I rode over 150 miles on our bicycles through Pennsylvania on the Great Allegheny Passage. That was quite an adventure for two middle-aged, slightly-out-shape, non-athletes! But it was fun!