I acquired 6 8″ terracotta flowerpots and one terracotta saucer, new from the store. Then I collected 12 large cottage cheese, sour cream and yogurt containers that had been emptied and washed.

I taped pairs of the tubs together, base to base, with masking tape. This didn’t need to be done neatly, only well enough that the plastic tubs stayed bound. These will be used as tall supports upon which I will allow flowerpots in progress to hang above any surface so the rims of the pots aren’t stuck to a surface when wet or painted.

The terracotta pots and one terracotta saucer outside on grass, with some cardboard to protect the grass from the spraypaint.

The painted flowerpots. I sprayed three white, one brown, one black, and one blue with a matching blue saucer.

An array of Dollar Tree nail polishes. I will dump them on the surface of very hot water in a 5 gallon bucket. The water needs to be hot so the nail polish will remain liquid, but I learned the hard way that the hot water enables the nail polish’s rather toxic fumes to rise into the surrounding air.

The stacked dairy product containers and the bucket of very hot water. Ad flyers on the floor to catch drips and possibly nail polish from the dipped flowerpots. I did this in the garage because it was windy outside.

Not shown: the most important part of the procedure, but I have only two hands and they were tied up. What happened: i poured three colors of nail polish, in different patterns (swirls, lines, dots) onto the top of the hot water. The nail polish did mostly float on top as hoped for. Wearing disposable gloves, I gripped a flowerpot by the hole in the bottom and the inside of the pot with one finger, and dipped it into the bucket of water and nail polish. As i slightly spun the flowerpot, the nail polish stuck to the painted flowerpot. Then i put each flowerpot upside down onto one of the pairs of yogurt/cottage cheese containers.

After I was done using one color combination of nail polish, it was easy enough to remove remnants of the floating nail polish from the top of the hot water with paper towels. A bit stuck to the inside of the bucket but it didn’t loosen and get onto the next flowerpot. Then the water was available for the next combination of colors.

Major lesson learned: either use smaller flowerpots or a bigger container of hot water because this setup didn’t allow enough nail polish to stick to the whole flowerpot. You will see the results in pictures below. This first picture shows two white-painted pots that were dipped in two shades of green and one of yellow nail polish. You will also see that I didn’t totally cover one pot with white spray paint. Its fumes were overpowering even though I sprayed outside.

On the left, the brown flowerpot that was dipped in tan, black and white nail polish. On the right, the black flowerpot dipped in red, white and silver glittery nail polish.

After the flowerpots and nail polish were thoroughly dried, for a day, I sprayed them with clear gloss sealant. I think this is recommended because terracotta pots might let water soak through and loosen the paint.

Here’s the brown pot giving a new home to an indoor plant.

I plan to put outdoor plants in the black and green pots, as well as the undipped navy and extra white pot (not shown). You can see the result of incomplete coverage for the green-yellow pots. I think they’re pretty anyway.