Artline Monday - Plant a flower day

Have you heard of Plant a flower day?  It is a great way to celebrate the upcoming spring and encourage people to try their hand at gardening.  It falls on the 12th of March each year and I thought it would be nice to get involved and test out my green thumbs!

Getting ready to plant some flowers

Before I started messing around with potting soil and seeds I wanted to decorate the terracotta pot I was going to use.  I knew it would take a while for my seeds to grow into a plant and flower so I wanted to add some colour to it for me to enjoy while I waited.

I tested out lots of different Artline pens on the bottom of the pot so I could see which ones stood out the best against the terracotta colour and decided to use my metallic poster markers as they went on smoothly and looked great.

Painting the top of the pot

I started out with the metallic blue colour and painted the top part of the pot...

Painting the edge of the pot

...and went around the edge of it too.

Adding more colour

Next I taped off sections of the pot with some skinny washi tape and filled them in with my silver, pink and blue poster markers.

Creating a pattern

The colours I chose kind of remind me of those Easter eggs you can get with pastel foil wrappers on them so they feel very spring like to me!

Finishing the design

The poster markers dried very quickly on the pot so it was easy to paint the whole way around it without worrying about smudges or ruining the sections I had already done.  Once I'd finished painting it I removed the strips of washi tape to reveal nice clean edges and stripes of terracotta to make my pattern.

Preparing my lolly stick

I thought I would colour coordinate my lolly stick with the pot so I painted it metallic blue as well and then wrote the name of the flowers on it with my trusty Garden marker.

Planting the seeds 

Once the pot was finished I filled it up with soil and planted some seeds, I really hope they grow!

My pretty pastel pot

While I'm waiting for Mother Nature to do her thing I've added a little pastel purple cactus garden ornament to the pot and one of my ladybird painted rocks just to make it look a bit more interesting.

A little ladybird is guarding my seeds

Last summer I decorated some outdoor garden pots and planters using Artline poster markers and they still look great now (even after being outside all over winter!) so if I need to move this pot outside once the seeds have sprouted I know it can withstand all kinds of weather!   

Will you be planting any flowers tomorrow?  Fingers crossed for a warm, sunny day!  

Artline Monday - Jazzing up plant pots and planters

During all the lovely weather we have been having recently I spent a lot of time outside sprucing up my garden.  I brought some new planters and pots and thought I would jazz them up a little with my Artline poster markers and pens.

My pot, planters and pens

The poster markers are great to use on plastic and metal surfaces and they will stay in place unless you wipe them off with a wet cloth.  This means if you make a mistake or don't like how your design looks you can wipe it off and start again.

For my first planter I used these two poster markers in pink and metallic silver.

Pink and silver

I used some washi tape to mark out a stripe around the top of the pot...

Marking out with tape

... and then painted it with a bright pink poster marker.

Painting the planter

The paint dried very quickly and then I slowly removed the washi tape.  Afterwards I used the silver poster marker to define the edges of the pink and mint sections by drawing along them freehand.

Removing the washi tape

Here is the finished piece!  I think the bright pink looks great paired with the pastel mint and silver.

Pink, silver and mint planter

For the yellow pot I wanted to add some flowers as decoration and I used all the poster markers below. 

Pens used

The 12mm size poster markers have a rectangle shaped nib so I used these pens to make the petals by dabbing them gently as if they were one of my stamps.  I drew in the centres of the flowers with the 6mm pens.... 

Making the petals

... and added some spots around the flowers for an extra touch.

Adding some spots

This is how it turned out.  Please ignore how sad the plant looks, it has had too much sun!

Pretty flower pot

On my last planter I decided to keep the original pastel look so I chose silver and white pens to work with.

Artline 900XF, poster and paint markers

Again I used washi tape to mark out the shapes I wanted...

Making a diagonal stripe with washi tape

... and then coloured them in with the white and silver pens.  I repeated this process until I had three new stripes on the front of the planter.

Colouring in with my silver Artline 900XF

After the inks and paint were dry I removed the tape and drew along the edges of my new sections with the complimentary colour (white along the silver stripes and silver along the white ones).

Highlighting the white stripe with silver

This is how it looks now!

Silver, white and mint planter

I'm very happy with my finished pots!  They are unique to my garden and I had fun decorating them outside in the glorious sunshine.  

On my doorstep

Have I inspired you to have a go a creating your own pots?  I'd love to see them if you do!