DIY Modern Indoor Plant Pots With Paint Pens

Create your own stylish modern indoor plant pots using inexpensive pots and paint pens. If you can draw lines and dots, you can do this simple project!

Hello Kenarry Readers! This is Jess from Jessica Welling Interiors. We’re all snowed in here in Seattle this week, so I’m holed up doing craft projects. Terrible, I know! And this week’s project is new pots for my ever-multiplying collection of houseplants. I’ll show you how easy it is to make budget-friendly modern indoor plant pots.

Create your own stylish modern indoor plant pots using inexpensive planters and paint pens. If you can draw lines and dots, you can do this simple project for your houseplants! #indoorplants #planters #kenarry

It thrills my soul that indoor plants are making a big style comeback! As a kid, Rainforest Cafe was my favorite restaurant, and I would have turned my bedroom into a mini jungle if I could.

Now that I’m all grown up, I’m going to do just that! Creating an indoor jungle, that is. I’ve been making some changes to my home design studio. And as I’ve been shopping for cool modern indoor plant pots, what I’ve realized is they’re not cheap! Especially since I want A LOT of them. So I was thrilled the other day when I was wandering through IKEA and found modern-shaped pots for $2, $3, and $4! I also found some cool ones at the dollar store. And they look fine on their own, but I wanted to give them some pizzazz.

Today I’m going to show you one method to create cool modern designs on inexpensive indoor plant pots using paint pens. This project is so easy, you can literally do the whole thing in 10 minutes or less! At least the line patterns… the dots might take a bit longer.

How to decorate modern indoor plant pots

Here’s what you’ll need:

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image of supplies to make DIY modern indoor plant pots with paint pens.

inexpensive solid-colored plant pots. (I used these NYPON grey recycled plastic pots from IKEA and plastic pots from the dollar store)
paint pens (I used medium-point Sharpie paint pens in white and black, and a fine-point one in gold)
spray paint (I used white for the dollar store pots.)

Instructions:

1. Decorate pots with vertical line patterns

I was inspired by this little pot (above) and decided to imitate the pattern etched into the pottery on the NYPON grey recycled plastic plant pots from Ikea.

I used a white medium-tip Sharpie paint pen and drew vertical lines on the first one. They didn’t need to be perfect, because this pattern isn’t very precise. That’s my kind of pattern!

image of paint men and DIY modern indoor plant pots.

And voila! This one seriously took five minutes!

image of DIY modern indoor plant pots with paint pens.

2. Plant Pots with horizontal line patterns

For the next one, I used the same type of gray NYPON pot– just a size bigger. I used the medium-tip white paint pen again, but I turned the pattern horizontal for a different effect. Staring at the top, I went around and around with broken lines until I got to the bottom.

image of someone making DIY modern indoor plant pots with paint pens.

That’s it!

3. Plant pots with vertical dot patterns

The next pot was a dollar store find. In fact, look at all the cool (or soon to be cool!) pots I found there!

image of modern plant pots from the dollar store

I spray-painted it white. As it turns out, spray-painting in the garage during a snow storm is not advised. It sort of worked, but the paint didn’t adhere as well as I would have liked because it was too cold. Looks like I’m going to have to wait a few weeks for the weather to warm up before I complete my jungle.

For this pattern, I used a metallic gold Sharpie paint pen with a fine tip. But the fine-tipped ones don’t seem to work as well as the medium tips. I made vertical lines of small dots in different sizes up and down the sides of the pot.

image of DIY modern indoor plant pots with paint pen dot pattern.

image of DIY modern indoor plant pot with dot pattern.

4. Horizontal dot patterns

Finally, I used a similar dot pattern, but with horizontal lines circling the pot. This pot was also from the dollar store and spray-painted white. And I used a black medium-point sharpie paint pen for this one. Again, the dots don’t have to be in perfect rows. That’s the look.

Of course, you can take these ideas and change them up too. Add in different colors, change the sizes and spacing of the lines and dots, and so much more! Lori Greco wrote a great post for Kenarry about choosing and caring for real houseplants if you want to learn more about them. Now go get some pots and paint pens and get to work!

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