Terra Cotta re-design, and new name?

Hello!

I have what seems like a million updates for you - LOTS of exciting things happening right now! I ran into I someone this afternoon who asked me to update my blog - she missed me! I promised I would, so I'm posting this a little out of sequence. I've started my bedroom design project, nearly completed my home office design, went on vacation, and started a business... but the project I'm showing you tonight, for lack of time to go on, and on...., is my inspirational pots re-design.

When we moved in to our house, we found some old, beat up Terra cotta pots on the side yard. They were my FIL's and had been home to some fig trees. They were jacked up, which I think is a technical term.

Here are the pots after being washed and sun dried. Notice how the yellow one has pretty engravings?

My vision was to bring life back to these pots, knowing they're old and not perfect anymore. Knowing the cracks will show, and the clay will continue to chip off. I wanted to show mercy to these pots and give them another chance to help me grow pretty flowers on my patio.

So I took off to Home Depot to find some paint, stencils, and plants to finish the project.

I picked up a pretty cute stencil set, plastic drop cloth, a glossy white paint, and a sunny yellow paint. I also grabbed a few plastic trays to stick under the pots so water wouldn't drip onto the tile patio.

I purchased a lantana plant that was a mix of red, yellow, white, and purple. I'm so glad I found the plant I was looking for and hoping they had available, blue cape plumbago. Randy's family had an aloe plant we found on the brink of death when we moved in. What a miracle - it came back to life when we added water! I highly recommend it if you want plants to grow. Contrary to what you may have heard, plants do not crave electrolytes. The aloe is pretty large now and graces our patio nicely.

Remember the yellow pot with the nice engravings? I re-illuminated it with the soft yellow. Since the pot is already decorative, I didn't stencil it. I planted the aloe here. 

Forgot to mention I couldn't resist these iron stands I 

found! 

 

The remaining pots I painted with the glossy white. I wanted to accent with a bold cobalt blue, but I didn't have that color in my collection. I did, however, have a dark navy and pretty royal, so I blended the two with a shimmery champagne acrylic paint to make the perfect cobalt blue.

I used the stencil on one of the pots, and then after careful adherence of the stencil to a curved surface, and meticulous re-outlining the bled over blue with a fine tip brush of white, I remembered I had a stamp I could've been using the whole time! Yup, stamped the next pot. I painted a verse on each pot, and planted the other two plants.

"Blessed are the Merciful"

This pot was the first one I finished, in the blue stencil. I painted the verse in brown, and went back later and added brown stamps, because stamps are amazing fun.

"For Every Thing, a Season"

This is the other pot, all stamped. I mixed so much pretty blue paint, I couldn't bear to throw it out and write in brown, so the verse is blue also. We had a cape plumbago at south house, and it was one of our happier seasons living down in that part of town. We will always remember how happy we were driving up to the house with this plant in full bloom. We needed to have one in our new home.

It's so nice now having a little color on the patio, and its only the beginning. I have a patio set that will be re-designed this summer! I can't wait to have the stuff I need (time, mainly) to complete that project in time for the cool weather in Phoenix. 

Lastly, I need to think of a new name for this blog. I am thinking of trademarking True. Lovely. Excellent. for my soon to be wildly popular business. I have so much identity in that phrase, that I want to keep part of it in some fashion. It would also be nice if I could incorporate my alter ego, Juice, in the name. 

Truly Yours, Juice? Give me your comments. If you help re-name my blog, a prize maybe?

Thanks for visiting! Talk to you soon.

Juice