The 4th of July is around the corner and I wanted to make something easy and fun to decorate our patio with and to show off our American pride. These red, white and blue planters took me 20 minutes to make. Below is everything you need including guidance on how to make them:

Materials

3 Small Terra Cotta Pots
Sponge Paint Brush Set
Red, White & Blue Acrylic Paint (I got three different shades of each color to mix together)
Red, White & Blue Flowers (I used PANSY & UPRIGHT LOBELIA for the blue, PETUNA for the white & VERBENA for the red)
Potting Soil
Star Foam Stamp
Artist Pallet

For the white pot, I put white, gray and black dabs of paint onto my artist pallet. I dipped my sponge into the white paint and then started making random horizontal strokes on the pot. With a clean brush, I repeated this process for the gray and black, layering all three colors until I got the washed effect I wanted. I did this exact process with the blue pot using the blue shades of paint. For the red pot, I painted on the three shades of red paint directly onto the star stamp (careful not to mix them) and then stamped the sponge onto the pot. This gave the star design a cool hombre effect. After the paint was dry (about 15 minutes), I transferred the flowers into their pots. If you need tips on how to do a plant transfer, you can read about it in one of my previous posts, here.

That's it! Super easy, very inexpensive and most of all, fun!

*One tip: When buying flowers, make sure that they have similar sun exposures, meaning that you don't pair a variety that needs full sun with one that needs full shade.