D.I.Y or Don’t

By Katie Naphas /// Features Editor

Everyone knows the saying “April showers bring May flowers,” right? Well, it sure has been showering and — although it’s not May — I’m ready for the fauna to come back to life. In honor of my favorite season, I decided to customize some pots for the only kind of plants I can manage to keep alive (i.e. fake ones) in a small effort to brighten things up and keep the kitschy vibe going in my house.

It also doesn’t hurt that this project costs next to nothing and takes very, very little time. All you need is a pot of some sort (the standard terracotta kind will do), some paper clay (in the jewelry section at JoAnn’s and other craft stores), acrylic paints and something that will make an interesting mark — but I’ll get to that.

Basically, what you want to do is break open your package of clay and attempt to evenly apply a layer of it to the outer walls of your pot. Try not to make the layer too thin, because you’re going to want it to be able to sustain marks, but you don’t want it too thick either. Essentially, you want the layer to still be underneath the lip of the pot and for it to ultimately still have the same shape that the pot had originally.

Anyway, once you’ve gotten your pot covered, you find something that will make an interesting design. I used the bottom of a pen to make circles on mine, but you could also use pens in general to etch a design into the clay or almost anything else you have to make it look a little different. Once you’re satisfied with your design, you’re going to need to let your clay dry out. Paper clay is especially easy to work with because it dries in a day.

Once everything’s dry and ready to go, you can paint the entire pot (or at least the outside) with your color/colors of choice, let it dry and you’re ready to fill your pot with whatever you want or to give it to someone as a gift. All in all, it’s easy to do this project and it’s a nice way to de-stress for a little while and still feel like you’re getting SOMETHING done. Good luck, y’all!