This faux french coun­try will have you want­i­ng to grab your joint com­pound and add tex­ture to absolute­ly every­thing! It’s not an extrav­a­gant DIY. Yes there are a few steps and it could get a bit messy but it’s the sum of all those things togeth­er that made a sim­ple, unex­tra­or­di­nary dol­lar tree planter into a French coun­try inspired piece of “faux pot­tery” for your home.

What do you need to create a faux french pottery finish?

• Plas­tic container
• joint com­pound
• paint brush x2
• paint of choice, I am using a beige sam­ple from Lowes
• plas­tic Wal­mart Bag
• Var­nish
• dirt.….yes good ole dirt from the yard

Step 1

This faux french coun­try piece began with me paint­ing a coat of joint com­pound all over the sur­face of the planter. I used a reg­u­lar chip brush for this step. It does­n’t mat­ter if you cov­er every sur­face of the con­tain­er just as long as you have enough to pull away when texturing. 

Step 2

After a nice thick coat of joint com­pound has been paint­ed on, take a plas­tic Wal­mart bag. Crin­kled it up in your hand to form a ball and blot the sur­face of the wet com­pound. This will pull some of the com­pound away from the sur­face of the planter leav­ing some areas raised and smudged. This is exact­ly how you want it to look a this stage. It’s impor­tant that you DO NOT WIPE, sim­ply touch the sur­face with the bag and pull straight up.

Allow time to dry com­plete­ly and repeat this step for added tex­ture if desired. 

Step 3

Once dry, take your sec­ond paint brush and paint the entire sur­face of your planter. This will cov­er any areas left exposed and from the pulling tech­nique I men­tioned earlier. 

Allow paint to dry

Step 4

Next comes the fun, and unex­pect­ed part.…DIRT! Yes, good ole dirt from the yard is what I am talk­ing about here. The charm that comes with old pot­tery is the age and imper­fec­tions and dirt left behind after years of planting…or at least how I imag­ine it.

Take small hand­ful of moist, not mud­dy, soil and rub it onto the sur­face of your new­ly tex­tured and paint­ed planter. The dirt will sit in the crevass­es of the dried paint and com­pound. Trust me on this yall. I recom­ment start­ing with very lit­tle to test your look and build on that. 

Step 5

Var­nish. This step is like the glue that holds all the lay­ers togeth­er. There will be some flak­ing pre-var­nish but once its applied and dried it locks every­thing in place! Do not skip this step yall. The joint com­pound will not want to stay on the plas­tic for­ev­er. This indoor/outdoor var­nish makes it durable! I am using a mat­te fin­ish here.

How pret­ty is this?? I enjoyed watch­ing it evolve from a cheap Dol­lar Tree Planter into a beau­ti­ful piece of faux French pot­tery! I filled it with some beu­ti­ful laven­der picks we hve in our shoppe! SHOP GREENERY HERE

I would love to know your thoughts in the com­ments! Thanks for reading!