DIY Painted Terracotta Pots – Farmhouse Decor
DIY painted terracotta pots are popping up everywhere this spring and make our farmhouse wishes come true. It makes sense for clay or terracotta pots to be popular in the spring because of all the beautiful flowers that are blooming and all of the greenery. And who doesn’t love some greenery and flowers!
Traditionally, these rusty colored pots are used outdoors to hold everything from herbs to plants. They look cute on potting benches outside and inside now too. I have painted my pots with some paint and sanded them down to make them feel a little bit roe worn out. Of course, I love everything white so I had to try some white pots too.
Today I am going to share a DIY painted terracotta pots project with you. If you do not have any extra, you can find them at most major retailers, including Lowe’s, Walmart, Home Depot, Dollar Tree, and Hobby Lobby. The ones that are featured in these photos are all from my local Restore because I found them for $.50. But they are only $1 at Walmart too.
Terracotta pots look great in their natural rust color but also look cute painted and/or distressed. I like to use a mix of both, giving the space a relaxed, time-worn look. This project is all about how I painted them and sanded them to look more vintage.
You can fill these pots with plants (faux or real), moss, or just leave them empty. Again, I enjoy doing a mix of both ways. The empty pots allow you to turn them on their sides or stack them. Ones that you fill with plants/greenery help add height to your space, which makes for a nice vignette. Take a look at how I styled them once they were done being painted.
DIY Painted Terracotta Pots
This is an extremely easy project to do and the steps are easy. How to paint terracotta pots white:
- take of all stickers and clean the pots up if they are dirty
- paint with white chalk paint. I used a regular paint brush and used dabbing motions
- paint some smaller parts with grey chalk paint
- add more white paint by dabbing or whitewashing
- use sandpaper on the edges or around to add some distressing
That’s it! And really you can switch up these steps or skip the grey paint. I just really like the clay/cement look it gave it. I also did not sand all of them because I liked them both ways and was being lazy.

I cleaned up these pots and had a bunch of sizes to choose from
This is my favorite white chalk paint to use. I buy it on Amazon and never use any other brands now. You can see another DIY project with the paint here.
This is what the dyi painted terrcotta pots looked after just dabbing the paint on them with the white chalk paint. You can see this first pot I painted on the paint thicker and I didn’t like that as much so I started dabbing.
After I added the white chalk paint I started dabbing on some grey chalk paint. The only reason why I did this was to make it look a little dirtier and worn. I barely used the grey paint. Below is the picture of the grey chalk paint I used.
After the grey paint, I added some more white just for more depth. Really can use as much or as little as you want. No way to do this project wrong. After all 3 “coats” I sanded down some of them and left some alone. It’s just preference if you want to sand them down. I had so many I had room to play around with them.
That’s all and then came the best part. Decorating with them. I added them to this table in an old metal cabinet and went to town. I added some moss to some of them and just laid some of them down. Easy peasy.
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Farmhouse Decor – Terracotta Pots with Plants and Moss
Hope you enjoyed this quick DIY painted terracotta pots project. I know I enjoyed it. It has been so nice having the sun out and the warmer weather is already here. I hope your spring is awesome! Check out my blog post on spring decor here and all about how I made the old book page eggs here.