Four Ways to Decorate Your Terracotta Pots for Halloween This Year

We have a lot of love for terracotta pots. They are a no-brainer choice for your plants: They’re cheap, blend in anywhere, but they are also easy to customize and make your own. We recently came up with a whole new way to use them at home, and we’re pretty chuffed about it.

Carving pumpkins is messy, requires tools, and then they just turn around and rot on you. Here’s another suggestion: Forgo the jack-o-lantern and decorate your plants and planters instead. You love them more anyway.

• Terracotta pot
• White craft paint
• Red craft paint
• Disposable plastic gloves
• Dropcloth or newspapers
• Plastic cup large enough to fit your hand inside
• Paintbrush or chopstick to mix the paint

1. Spread out the dropcloth or newspapers to protect your working area from paint splatters.
2. Paint the pot white, using multiple coats if necessary. Let dry completely.
3. Squirt about two tablespoons of paint into the plastic cup. Mix in about a teaspoon of water to thin the consistency of the paint.
4. Test the splatter paint by dipping your fingertips (while wearing gloves) in the thinned paint and then flicking the paint over an open area of the drop cloth. The paint should be thick enough not to run when the drop cloth is lifted vertically. If it is too runny, add more paint.
5. Using the technique described in step four, flick paint over the pot to create a splatter design.

• Terracotta pot
• Flat back glass eye cabochons, either in 12mm or 25mm size
• Black craft paint
• Paintbrush
• Hot glue gun
• Chalk

1. Paint the pot black and let dry fully.
2. Using the chalk, mark on the pot where each eye should go so that they’re evenly spaced out.
3. Use the hot glue gun to attach the cabochons.

• Terracotta pot
• Temporary tattoos of insects or bugs
• Sponge
• Small bowl for water
• Matte decoupage glue
• Paintbrush
• Scissors

1. Cut each individual insect out of the sheet of tattoos and peel off the clear plastic layer.
2. Hold the tattoo on the surface of the pot, tattoo side down. Dampen the sponge and then wet the paper of the tattoo until it’s fully soaked, pressing gently to adhere the design to the pot. It should take about 20 seconds for the tattoo to lift off the paper.
3. Carefully peel off the backing paper so that the insect tattoo remains on the pot.
4. When the pot is fully covered in bugs and is dry, brush over it with a layer of decoupage glue to seal in the tattoos.

• Terracotta pot
• Plastic spoons in orange and/or black (you will need about 75 to cover a 6-inch pot)
• Heavy duty scissors or shears
• Hot glue gun

1. Snip off the handles of the spoons near the base. It’s ok if the spoons crack a bit as they’re cut—the cracks won’t show as the spoons overlap each other.
2. Beginning at the top of the pot, glue spoons on in a row so they completely cover the terracotta.
3. Continue gluing the spoons on in rows down the entire surface of the pot, staggering the pattern and overlapping the next row down by about half the length of the spoon.

Prop styling from Ashley Toth.