Odd Balls Flower Pot

This post is coming from my picture archives.  Back in March, my friend Stephanie and I wanted to make something special for our friend Cathy for her birthday.   Some background: we are on a bowling team with Vince and we call ourselves the Odd Balls.  Her birthday was falling on a bowling night, so we had to do something special.

Stephanie came up with the idea of doing a potted plant.  But we just can't buy a plant and say, "Here."  So we decided to take a plain terracotta planter and paint it.  For this we bought kids paint, sponges and brushes.  Stephanie had yellow paint already for a home decor project that did not go well (for the record, none of her rooms are this color yellow!).

Stephanie painted the pot with with few coats before we got together, so we would not have to sit and watch paint dry.  When we got together, we made "stamps" out of the sponges.  This was done by printing out an outline of a pin onto paper and cutting it out.  Then we traced the outlines of the bowling pin and drew a circle for the ball on a sponge.  Once they were traced on the sponges, we cut out the surrounding sponge so the pin and ball were raised from the sponge.  Very clever thinking!

Pin Sponge Stamp

We used paper plates as the paint tray but found out that if we paint the paint onto the sponge, we would get a more even coat.

Blue Bowling Ball Stamp

Once we got the kinks out of our painting technique, we were off and painting.  She did the bowling balls and I did the white pins.

Pins Are On!

Here is another view:

Balls Are On!

Cathy's bowling ball is like a Star Trek ball where it is a dark blue swirl with a hint of glitter, like the galaxy.  So, to add that special touch, while the blue paint was still wet, Stephanie took a gift bag that had glitter on it and scrapped it onto a plate and blew the glitter onto the ball.  It stuck!  She did well!

Around the rim we painted Odd Balls, Cathy, 2011.

Lettering Is Complete

We let the artwork (and it was a piece of art, let me tell you) dry overnight.  Stephanie sprayed it with a sealant so it can withstand the weather and not chip.  She also went out and bought a few different plants and flowers and planted a small container garden in the pot.  We brought it to bowling the following day with balloons on fishing weights and buried them in the soil.  We celebrated with cheesecake!

Finished

We were pleased as punch that it came out so well.  Happy Birthday (again), Cathy!