Teach Me Tuesday: Perfectly Proportioned Polka Dots

If you would like your home decor project to be featured in an upcoming edition of Teach Me Tuesday, please email me at LivingWithLindsay@gmail.com and we’ll chat!

Today’s Teach Me Tuesday comes from my friend Kimm at Reinvented.  She has these adorable polka dot pots on her front porch, and I was so excited when she shared with us how she created such perfectly imperfect polka dots on them.  Polka dots are so popular right now!

Kim shares:

First of all, let me get one thing straight.  “Perfectly” and “Proportioned” are great “P” words, but they’re not EXACTLY perfectly appropriate in this post.  “Imperfectly proportioned”, or Perfectly Disproportioned” might have been more truthful, but not nearly as much FUN.

So…I’ve had a lot of questions asking me how I added the polka dots to my large black clay pots on the front porch.

So darn it, I’m going to share.  How nice is that?

Let’s just say first that I think it’s IMPOSSIBLE to free hand paint a perfect circle.  Or even a beautifully imperfect circle.  You know how we always say we don’t want a project to turn out perfectly, because we like the “handcrafted” look?

Well, that rule does not apply to POLKA DOTS.

Normally, I’d use a stencil, but that’s difficult when you want to cover a surface with the same shape.  Or I might trace around a glass or something round, but that’s pretty hard on a curved surface.

So I buy these at the craft store for a couple bucks.

Perfectly round stencil brushes.  They are meant for pouncing paint through a stencil, but they work pretty well for stamping.  There’s three sizes in the package.

And I bought this.  I figured it was time to invest in the ECONOMY size.

The first step, of course, is the base color.  I used whatever black spray paint I had on hand.

Then you just start stamping.  I like to stamp the paint on, then rotate the brush just a little to make sure the entire circle shows up.

I don’t do anything crazy, like measuring, I just eyeball the distance and try to space the dots out evenly.

I like to stamp a few partial dots on the edges of the pot.

Now, I know that you’re wondering what to do with those spongey marks in the dots.  I just use a paint brush to clean up the edges and smooth out the spongey marks.

Don’t worry if it’s not 100% spot on (pun totally intended) PERFECT, as long as the dots look good from the sidewalk, you’re GOOD.  I get lots of compliments from people walking by, not so many from people that actually come up on the porch. 

So cute, Kimm!  Thanks so much for sharing!