I’m almost embarrassed to show these to you guys, but here we go.

These are some clay pots that I bought at a craft show of some kind many years ago.  In case you are wondering, yes, they are just drawn on with a Sharpie.  I know, right?  What was I thinking?

I apologize now if the person who made these recognizes them and feels bad that I am mocking them.  Hey, I bought them, so I guess at one time I didn’t think they were that bad.  Not only that, but I have displayed them in my office at the day job every fall since I purchased them.  And even worse, I put one in the window sill with dried hydrangeas in it last fall and it had sat there ever since.  All through last Christmas, and then spring and summer … right up until I brought it home the other day.  Seriously, for that alone I should have my official decorating blogger ID card taken away permanently (if there was such a thing).

Well, I have finally come to my senses and decided to spruce these up and make them into something I won’t be embarrassed to display.  The impetus for this change came when I stopped in at Farmhouse Inspired a few weeks ago to get some more Fusion paint.  I noticed that Jody was also carrying a new chalk paint line created by the Junk Gypsies.  And she had a small table painted in their mustard yellow color, which is called Granny’s Cornbread.  I just loved the richness of the mustard.  I wanted to buy some to play around with, but she only had the large size cans of this color in stock at the moment.  I couldn’t bring myself to spend $40 to just play around with a color, and I’m not sure how well large pieces of furniture would sell painted in this color.  But Jody graciously offered to share a small free sample with me (thanks again Jody!)  Perfect for painting some pots!

I put two coats of paint on, but noticed I could still faintly see the original sharpie drawn details, so I added a third coat of paint.  Then I used the acrylic medium transfer method to add some autumnal looking graphics (if you want more detail on this method, check out this post about the french hat box.)

Ahhh.  So much better.  Almost.  Until you look closely and see that the stars are still peeking through the paint around the rim on the shorter pot.  Drat!  I then put another coat of paint around just the rim of that pot.  Then I got involved in something else for a few days.  And when I came back to the pots … well … sigh … this happened ….

First of all, the Sharpie ink had continued to bleed through my paint.  Then, to add a little extra frustration to the moment, I dropped one of the pots!

So, two lessons learned here.  First, Sharpie ink bleeds through chalk paint.  Second, don’t drop clay pots.

In the end, I went to Menards and purchased some brand new clay pots to paint.

Unfortunately, at that point I was almost out of Granny’s Cornbread and had just enough left for two more pots.  So I also used Annie Sloan’s Old White and Coco.

I also went with an additional graphic that isn’t quite as fall-ish, but I thought it was just gorgeous.

A word to the wise, these pots would not be suitable for house plants.  I haven’t actually tested it, but I’m sure that over time too much moisture would leach through the pot and lift the paint off.  However, you can use plants that are in plastic liner pots and just remove them to water them.  Let them drain well, and then return them to the pot.  These pots happen to look great with some fall mums in them.  I know this because sent a few over to Eye Candy ReFind that way!  I also brought some pots over to Reclaiming Beautiful this week.  So if you are local and want one of these pretty pots to use for a fall mum, head to either shop!  And if you have something that you want to paint in a gorgeous rich mustard yellow, consider trying the Granny’s Cornbread.