I’m sure you guys have noticed the big “dipped” trend going on right now? From dipped furniture legs, to tote bags, to wooden kitchen spoons, it’s like the new chevron. Even my pal Tanya has tried out this technique (here and here).
(photos clockwise from left to right: via house and home, via poppytalk, via centsational girl, via martha stewart)
Well, I have been itching to give this trend a try, but wasn’t sure what I wanted to dip. Then when we were gifted our new-to-us ficus tree for our dining room (thanks Tim!), I quickly thought about a dipped plant pot.
I don’t know about you guys, but I find the usual planters at most stores to be ridiculously expensive. Even the ones that are a hard plastic (and generally aren’t all that pretty) can be like 30 bones. So in came IKEA. They have a few different varieties of large planters – some metallic and woven guys that are pretty fab – but I was after a basic terra cotta pot. I found the Ronnbar pot and saucer, which were $9 all together. Can’t beat that price.
Then came the fun part. I started off by giving most of the pot a couple coats of the leftover mint green paint from this project (not worrying about getting the paint all the way to the bottom).
Then I grabbed the same painter’s tape from my recent closet project and taped out the bottom.
Since the planter goes from wide at the top to narrow at the bottom, I knew the tape wouldn’t seal perfectly unless I put it on in smaller pieces and didn’t have a perfectly rounded base. I didn’t want to go that route, so I just kept it slightly imperfect and figured I could touch up where necessary afterwards.
I grabbed some metallic gold acrylic paint and got started. This stuff was a lot thinner than my original mint paint, so it took at least 4 coats to get it to cover well enough. Probably should have expected that since it came from the dollar store.
See what I mean? This was about 2 coats in and you can still clearly see the mint paint underneath.
However, it did eventually cover, and I pulled off the tape. As I expected, I had a few areas to fix up, but overall I liked the rounded line the tape had given me. Had I done it free hand, it definitely would’ve been all over the place.
What I didn’t like so much though, was the mint and gold combo. It doesn’t look so bad in the photo above, but in person the gold totally outshone the mint and made it look kind of icky and way too light. Not the bright, fun, planter I was expecting it to be. So when I did my touch-up coat, I used a more vibrant turquoise I had kicking around.
Luckily it took only one coat, and not only was it a total cinch to cover up the little gold marks, but this deeper colour looked great next to the gold. Just like two peas in a pod.
The last step (not pictured) that I did before we planted our tree, was to give the planter a couple coats of a clear matte acrylic sealer. You can get these in the spray paint section of just about any hardware or crafts store. Just make sure to spray outside, as it’s stinky and sticky stuff!
Then it was time to give our new tree a home. Hubby put some rocks in the bottom to help with drainage (he’s the green thumb around here).
And then we did a quick transfer job, while I was panicking about getting earth on the new rug. Why we didn’t just do this outside… I’m not quite sure?
Here she is in her new home. I love how it turned out! The plant provides some much-needed greenery in the room and we love its shape and character. And the planter is a little slice of cheerful.
The metallic bottom totally plays up the planter and gives it some edge. Plain turquoise would have been so booooring.
There you have it. I’m officially on board with the dipped trend and I’m diggin’ it.
What about you guys? Done any dipping lately? I’m still itching to do the wooden spoons in my pad. Or ever painted a planter?