DIY Small Boxwood Topiary

I love anything boxwood and I love little pops of greenery to use around the house. I picked up two faux boxwood balls from Hobby Lobby that were in their Spring section and on sale and knew they’d be cute to use in many different ways. I will definitely be heading back to grab some more of these. They would be cute in a bowl, lantern, sitting around, and so many different places. I already had a 2 pack of clay pots from Dollar Tree and decided they would work perfect for some little boxwood topiaries. I posted this on my Instagram last night and had a couple people ask about the painting technique so I figured I would share with you how I achieved that look.

Painting Steps:

You can use grays and whites or any colors that you would like, but I chose a cream, brown and green. I also used a brush that was a little older and not super smooth which gave me a rougher looking brush stroke. This sounds more complicated than it is, don’t overthink it! I did 3 pots in 10 minutes or less.

Steps One: Roughly paint some dull green strokes sporadically on the pot. I mixed brown with my green to get a duller color. No need to buy new paint for this, use what you have! If you are doing multiple pots, go ahead and do this to all of them before moving on to the next step.

Tip: You can put your entire hand in the pot to hold it and rotate it easily while you paint.

Step Two: Then roughly paint some lighter brown stokes. I mixed the brown and cream to give me a light to medium brown color. Mixing paint can also give you different shades of the color which adds dimension.  I mostly tried to fill in where the green areas were not and if I overlapped with the green, that’s ok! Quick, rough strokes work perfectly! Don’t worry about covering every area of the pot.

Step Three: Using very little paint (can be known as a dry brush technique) lightly brush the cream in some of the non-painted areas first. Then I lightly brushed on top of the green and brown areas. There is really no method to the madness. Some of the original clay color shows through which is fine! If an area gets too light, just add more brown and go back over it. If you have too much paint on your brush, just lightly dab it a little on the plate or anywhere to remove some of it.

 

That is all! Just let them dry. I just sat the boxwood balls in them so I can remove them and use them other places if I want to. You can glue to secure them or attach to floral foam if you prefer, but that isn’t necessary!

Boxwood Balls were around $2 at Hobby Lobby (on sale) and then the pots were 2 for $1 at Dollar Tree. If you already have paint, that makes these topiaries $2.50 each which is a great deal! You can find boxwood topiaries for sale for up to $40 a piece for one very similar to this! I hope you found this simply tutorial helpful!