How to maintain the illusion of spring once our Lowcountry heat and humidity has set in? Try enlivening your front porch pots with vibrant patterns and pretty prints for color that has a little staying power.

How to maintain the illusion of spring once our Lowcountry heat and humidity has set in? Try enlivening your front porch pots with vibrant patterns and pretty prints for color that has a little staying power.

Here’s what I did:
1. Lacking fabulous (and likely expensive) new pots, I searched through a surplus of specialty quilting fabric stored under my desk and enlisted the help of my kids to pick out favorite prints.
2. We then cut the standout fabrics to fit plain old galvanized tin buckets.
3. To adhere the fabric, we mixed up a gooey, watery decoupage medium of Elmer’s glue and water. We coated the fabric completely in the glue mixture and molded it onto the buckets. A few extra coats of glue on top ensured that the fabric fit like a glove.
4. We set the buckets aside for a day or two to dry.
5. Using a clear acrylic polyurethane, we twice coated each bucket to protect it from water and solar abuse.
6. I drilled drainage holes into the bottom and got ready to pot some plants!

What’s great about this project is that it made use of items I already had (sometimes being cheap is the best way to go green!), was kid-friendly, and very simple to do. Give it a try and let us know how it turns out!