Decorating terracotta pots tips?

[WombatStewForTea]

I've decided to buy and decorate some terracotta pots as presents for kids. Has anyone got any tips of the best way to do it? Are there certain materials that are good to use or that I should avoid? I don't want them to be over the top as I've got quite a few to do. I was wondering about getting some craft pens and decorating with those?

Arcyric paints will work well though indoors only unless you want to vanish them.

You can get craft pens that work on wood glass etc but quite expensive and difficult to cover large areas but a few colours can work to add detail.

I have done this & there are a couple of ways of doing it, depending on how big your pots are.

Small pots, use ceramic paints that can be set in the oven afterwards

Large pots (small too for less intricate designs) give them a base coat of white Hammerite & then use the sort of spray paints that are used for graffiti art with stencils & masking tape to add your designs - these last really well

you could also try using model makers paints, to paint a design onto the white base - I haven't tried that one but I can't see why it wouldn't work

You could use acrylic as mentioned above, but I found this comes off easily with watering etc - it might be better if sealed with a waterproof Modge Podge, if you can get your hands on some