Spray Paint + Mud Covered Planters (a.k.a. DIY Spray Painted Vases Part III)

If you’re wondering if this is going to be just like the previous two DIY Spray Painted Vases posts…you partially right, except this time we’ve got a whole new messy step to add in. This time we’re going to get a little mud on our hands!

I have been looking for large, modern planters for our front porch for two years. Even the plastic ones seem to be crazy expensive, with price tags around $80 a piece and up. And none actually looked like I wanted them to.

This year I stumbled upon some $29.98 salt and pepper textured plastic ones at Lowe’s and decided to give them a little makeover.

They started like this…

Not bad, but I knew I wanted something black or a dark charcoal, so the first step was spray painting them with matte black spray paint.

Next I collected some mud from our flower beds and added enough water to create a sort of brownie batter consistency.

And smeared it all over the planters in a side to side pattern to mimic a plastered or stucco planter.

Then I let the mud dry, which got us here…

Because these planters were heavily textured to start with, the mud stuck a lot more than on my other mud and paint vases so instead of just knocking off the excess, I had to use a wet cloth and wipe down sections until it was more black than brown.

I still felt like it wasn’t black enough at this point so I went back over it with the black spray paint in a view spots until I achieved the look I was going for. Normally you could stop after wiping the excess mud off.

The finished result…

The idea to smear mud on vases came from one of my favorite insta accounts by Jaci Daily. You can see her original tutorial in her highlights here.

It’s a fun project to do with your littles. They are usually a little more “free” in their mud use and it makes for interesting pieces. It’s also fun to hear their thoughts on getting a pot dirty on purpose. My five year old and I worked together to turn a bright blue Target dollar spot planter into a chic paint and mud version and we both loved the process and the product!

Do you have a piece that could use a little mud bath? Tag me on insta if you give it a try!