Tony Stark isn't the only one with his very own Pepper Pots

Okay first of all, I'm sorry for the terrible post title. But I couldn't resist some topical humor, what with the release of Iron Man 3 this past weekend. Anyway...

Spring is making its way to Boston in its usual fits and starts (70 degrees one day, 50 the next), and we're doing the best to enjoy the weather and the season before it inevitably turns to heat and humidity in a few weeks. Sam has been making a foray into gardening over the past few years, so we made a trip to the hardware store today to pick up some seeds and other supplies to kick off the season. We especially like to grow peppers, hence the title of the post.... It also gave us good reason to start using one of the birthday presents I got Sam while I was in New Orleans (in addition to the Jack Daniels cheese plate featured here): a handmade wooden contraption I found at a craft fair used to hang garden pots:

Doesn't look like much, right? And how on earth does it work?

The first step in putting it to use was to procure some generic terracotta pots at the hardware store in varying sizes (we got two each of three different sizes).

Then I decided that I wanted to spruce things up a bit since I've been craving a crafting project and had recently seen some pot-decorating ideas online that I liked. This project was easy peasy -- all told it probably took me about 30 minutes, including clean-up.

First I gathered together some leftover paint from past projects in three different -- but related -- shades. I used the robin's egg blue from the hallway makeover, the turquoise from my dresser project, and the "platinum" from my armoire stenciling project. Then a scrounged up some rubber bands, and was ready to go.

I placed the rubber bands at an angle around the bottom of each pot to create a straight line, going for a "dipped in paint" look (shout out to Wit and Whistle for the inspiration...but I swear I would have used turquoise even if she didn't, given my well-documented obsession...). Then I painted the bottom of each pot below the rubber band, using two coats (the paint dried extremely quickly, so this didn't slow me down). Like so:

I did two in each color, then left them to dry upside down for a few extra minutes.

Then I took them outside along with my wooden hanging contraption, and voila:

We're excited to get some plants growing in there -- I think it's going to be a fun addition to the front porch! The gentleman who sold them to me demonstrated how sturdy the hanging apparatus is (it uses the weight of the pots to keep everything in place) -- they can be knocked around in the wind and not come loose. If you're interested, you can take a look at his website here. There are so many different arrangements possible, it will be fun to play around with them.