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Spring Crafts for Kids: Decorate Terra Cotta Pots

Decorate terra cotta pots as a fun spring craft for kids. Give them as gifts or help children plant seeds in their creations! These pots make lovely Mother’s Day or teacher gifts with goodies or plants inside.

Click here to learn how to make eraser stamped bunnies as another a spring art project.

Looking for a fun spring craft for kids? It's easy to decorate terra cotta pots, and then you can use the finished product to plant spring flowers! - an easy #spring #craft for #kids & a great #teachergift or #MothersDay gift!

I hope you enjoy this easy craft for decorating flower pots that I am sharing today! Decorating terra cotta pots is one of my favorite spring crafts for kids! Lots of room for customization, and they can really take pride in this craft and turn it into a lovely Mother’s Day gift or teacher gift.

child-painted terra cotta clay pots

My kids really enjoyed stenciling their names onto these terra cotta clay pots (ours were just over 4 inches tall).

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DIY Decorated Terra Cotta Pots

The idea for this project came when Blueprint Social sent us some Mod Podge Washoutand Apple Barrel paint, as well as letter stencils and three foam spouncers to play with. I had the terra cotta pots left over from another project, and they seemed perfect for the spring paint colors. The kids are still deciding whether they want to use the pots for flowers or if they want to keep their crayons on them. I suspect crayons will win. My kids love their craft supplies, and they know they get to plant seeds in our raised garden outside!

Apple Barrel Paints and Washout Mod Podge

How to Decorate Terra Cotta Pots With Children

We started off with our terra cotta pots and the supplies pictured above. My kids were anxious to get started, but they actually decided to wait until we had a couple friends over who could join in on the fun!

A five-year-old helps a seven-year-old stencil a pot

The supplies were pretty easy for my independence-minded kids to use on their own! Five-year-old Johnny held the stencils in place for seven-year-old Emma. Here is her first letter:

seven-year-old stenciling a terra cotta pot

Tips for Stenciling Pots

The stencils come four per sheet, but they are easier to work with if you cut them in four. We learned that you want to make sure you have a medium amount of paint on the sponge spouncer, but having too little is better than too much.

You also want to make sure your spouncer is pretty dry after you wash the paint off it – otherwise it can make letters look messy. If you mess up a letter you can wipe the paint off while it is still wet and start over. Apple Barrel paint is an all-purpose acrylic craft paint that cleans up with soap and water while wet.

five-year-old adds finishing touches to his terra cotta clay pot

Once they finished the letters they added a little extra paint to the top of the pot. Once the paint was dry, they added Mod Podge – it seals everything in, and I feel that it also really makes the colors pop. Mod Podge Washout is the same formula as Mod Podge Gloss but washes out of clothing and furniture with soap and water, even when it is dry – making it perfect for moms and teachers. You can throw clothes in the washing machine and it will come out – no pre-soak needed. My kids are all very neat, and they didn’t get any anywhere, but it was still reassuring to know it would come out.

mod podged pots drying

We mod podged a few squares of colored tissue paper onto a fourth pot, just as an experiment. The kids also got a little over-enthusiastic with mod podge on the tissue paper pot – you can see the extra mod podge in the picture above. It looked fine once it was dry, and I think it would have looked really neat if we had painted the pot a pale blue or other light color before adding the tissue squares.

tissue paper mod podged pot

This is seven-year-old Emma’s pot. I like the texture of the pink and other sponging she did around the pot. She also added a couple squares of tissue to her pot, and this photo illustrates nicely how the mod podge makes the colors stand out.

Our letters are not perfect, but that is because they were done entirely by the kids. An adult can get clean lines easily.

seven-year-old mod podged and stenciled pot - with tissue paper as well

Here is five-year-old Johnny’s pot. He used a dot pouncing technique around the rim. Both he and Emma painted the insides of their pots.

Stenciled pots are easy enough for even a young child to make, and they make wonderful teacher gifts or Mother's Day gifts!

And this is three-year-old Lily’s pot. She added a yellow moon stencil to her pot, and you can see that her letters are the least neat. Lily is a minimalist in most craft projects, so it isn’t surprising that she chose to keep the rim and inside of her pot plain.

Stenciled and mod podged pots are easy spring crafts for kids to make.

More Spring Crafts for Kids

This post was originally written as part of a campaign with The Blueprint Social. It has since been amended. All opinions are my own.

What is your favorite way to decorate terra cotta pots?

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MaryAnne at Mama Smiles

MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.

39 thoughts on “Spring Crafts for Kids: Decorate Terra Cotta Pots”

  1. How funny this just showed up in my reader again, and I was about to comment about our love of acrylic paints, when I saw I’d commented before.

    1. Hi ESK,

      When you share projects of mine and use photos you need to link to the post for instructions, not link to my general site and then summarize the instructions. Please make this change.

      Thanks,
      MaryAnne

      1. My apologies. The link ts to the specific page and the photo now links to this specific project page as well.
        Thanks

  2. Hi!

    Do you remember how long they took to dry? I am planning this craft for an evening activity with a group of children, and was hoping that they dry relatively quickly!?

    Thanks for the cute idea!

    1. The Apple Barrel paint dried really quickly! The Mod Podge takes a little longer, especially if you use a lot. It might be best to have some sort of box or tray for them to bring the pots home in? Our friend skipped the mod podge step entirely and just took it home painted, without needing a container.

  3. Elisa | blissfulE

    One day I’ll have to try out mod podge. Your kids’ projects look amazing, and I’m sure they will love using them over and over..

    1. I was very happy to see this new washable mod podge – so if it does get on clothes, you can wash it out. I am a huge fan of washable craft supplies for kids!

  4. jeannine: waddlee-ah-chaa

    Oh, I like these! We are always planting and gardening so my kiddos would love these. So personal and sooooo cute!

  5. I can’t believe that your kids didn’t get the modge podge everywhere – crafty and neat is such a wonderful combination. The pots turned out beautifully and I love that your kids waited until their friends could join in and that Johnny held the stencils for Emma. You have pretty amazing kids.

  6. Super cute and cheap craft! We’ve already started our “garden” this year with plants on the window sill – too bad the Dixie cups we used don’t work well for longer germinating plants. The little pots are perfect for beginning the garden. I’ll be doing this activity next year with J.

  7. Fun! I have pots I bought for my son to make Mother’s Day gifts last year…well…maybe they’ll actually be done by Mother’s Day this year. :) I think he’d enjoy the stenciling more than my original plan.

  8. This is a cute project! I love how bright the colors are. It looks that they all had fun with this craft.

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