The Arctic chill has kept me inside for the better part of Thanksgiving weekend. Today, on day four, I decided to take the opportunity to paint some terracotta pots I had lying around and to plant some props that have had roots for a few weeks now.

I painted the pots with the milk paints from Fusion Mineral Paint’s Swedish Collection. I wanted to use milk paint because of how quickly it weathers and chips and I think my succulents will look really nice in the pots once the paint cracks and the terracotta starts showing through again. There’s a part of me that feels inauthentic for using a paint specifically made to age quickly, but I don’t mind.

I had four cabo-style pots with saucers. The milk paint comes in a powder and needs to be mixed with water. The amount of water you add determines the darkness of the paint and the dry time. I ended up giving half of the pots about four coats of red paint and the other half the same amount of blue. After I the final coats were dried, I mixed up a small amount of white paint in a leftover medicine cup (the cup that comes on top of the bottles that you use to measure your dosage) and lined the rim of the pots and the saucers with one heavy pass.

I did all this on my kitchen counter on the plastic boot tray we keep by our front door. The good thing about milk paint is that it cleans up really easily, so even though I got a little bit on the counter, it wiped off easy.

I have a large cactus that stays outside year-round in a big terracotta pot that I painted several years ago in the same way. At this point, almost all of the red has chipped away. The only traces of it are near the bottom of the pot, inside the rim above the soil (about 1") and on the saucer. I think it looks beautiful and hopefully I can bring the pots I painted today outside during the summer and weather them the same way.