How to paint a house shaped planter to give it a fun festive makeover.

It’s time for another Do it Over Designers, when I join some of my creative friends and we each bring a craft where we’ve taken something old and given it a “do over”. This month we have the theme of THE HOLIDAYS. All the other upcycling Holiday themed ideas are linked at the bottom of this tutorial.

I thought this would be a good time to try out an idea that had been buzzing around in my head for almost a year now.

I’ve had this little house shaped concrete houseplant planter for a quite a few years, it was a gift from a friend. It sits on our kitchen window sill and last Christmas, whilst I was washing up a few bits, it crossed my mind that it could maybe be given a bit of a Christmassy update. Maybe I could paint it to look a bit like a gingerbread house or something?

The planter is the same on both sides so I figured that one side could be given a Christmas vibe and the other side left plain for the rest of the year.

As you can see my planter is house shaped but if you had a regular plain square planter you could still give it a Christmas house makeover and get a similar effect.

How to paint a Christmas House Planter

What you need to give a planter a Christmassy makeover

An unglazed concrete planter - ideally a house shaped one like mine
Acrylic paint in white, red and yellow
Paint markers

Start by painting over any details on the planter that you want to get rid of. I used 2 coats of white acrylic paint to cover the black window and door on my planter.

Paint a red door and yellow window. For this I used acrylic paint and a fine brush.

Paint in some Christmassy details

Now it’s time to add Christmassy details. And time for me to confess that I did this “do over” twice! First time I added a large wreath and some Christmas tree shapes, plus some colourful lights.

When they were finished I just wasn’t happy. This is annoying because I had actually planned what I was going to paint on paper first. The good new is that if you don’t like what you’ve done you can just paint over it and try again.

So in a spirit of full transparency I will show you the first version - the one I wasn’t happy with - and then the second version that I do like.

The big wreath just seemed to big after all, and the Christmas trees were fine but I didn’t like there just being 2. I think 1 or 3 would have been better and more balanced.

Anyway, it took just 2 coats of white paint to cover them up so I could try again. I did like the Christmas lights around the window, door and eaves so they stayed.

2nd time lucky. I painted 2 more little windows, lining them up so they are the same size as the original window.

I drew around a penny to get a small circle for a more appropriately sized wreath. 2 small triangles became trees either side of the door, that felt more balanced.

The paint pens are ideal for painting small details like this, the colourful Christmas lights are just dots.

Nothing I drew was very complicated, it’s all very simple shapes and dots but it’s given this rather plain planter a Christmassy vibe.

On the other side of the planter I did paint over the door and window, just as before. The original door was giving me slight portcullis/prison vibes so a cheerful red door brightens it up a little.

So the plan is that this plainer side with the red door will be on display from January to November and then a quick swizzle round and the Christmassy side will be on display for December. If someone peered in the kitchen window from the outside all year round they might get a slightly Christmassy surprise but I’m not too worried about that!

I did consider painting more Christmas trees and lights around the sides but in the end I left them plain so the planter is more versatile and works all year round. One of those “less is more” situations which goes against all my natural impulses to decorate all the things :-D