Wrap them in burlap or put them inside burlap feed sacks.
You can thread heavy yarn through the tops of the sacks to pull the sack tight against the top of the bucket.

When the burlap begins to sag & look unsightly, replace it & put the old stuff in your compost heap.

Will - I'd be interested in ideas too. We have tons of green pickle buckets at home from DH's restaurant. We use the heck out of them, but I think they'd make great planters - if covered somehow! :)

I bet you could glue strips of weathered wood, or smallish twigs around them, too, & tie them with yarn or strips of fabric.
I think I saw that on Martha Stewart once...

Buckets are just difficult!
They're plastic, & they have handles & handle holes, & they're odd sizes & shapes, & sometimes they're electric blue!

Wonder if you could get more ideas at the Garden Junk Forum?

They are very crafty over there!

I asked my painter about painting the buckets, but he said paint probably would not stick unless I sanded and primed it, which it waaaaay too much work. I love the burlap idea.

I'm growing cantaloupes in a bucket that cat litter came in, and it really does not look very appealing.

Where would burlap bags be available? Feed stores?

I used those big plastic detergent buckets to make a memory bucket by gluing pictures of daylilies from catalogues all over the bucket. After the bucket was decoupaged with pictures of flowers, I glued purple, blue and red ribbons from shows on it along with memorabilia from trips and conventions. It is really cute, but the one that I got the most compliments on and the one that inspired my friends the most was my junk bucket.

I made the junk bucket from my husbandÂs pack rat drawer. He likes to pick up think like bolts, wire etc. and he never throws anything away (except my junk.) Anyway he said I could have all of it, even his army stuff, so I drilled little holes in the bucket and wired the junk all over the bucket. Pulling on an old gearshift knob that was wired to the lid, lifts the lid. It is unique. My friendÂs husband is a painter, and she was inspired to make one with his old paintbrushes and paint stuff.

You would need to put a liner inside if you planted the buckets. I use one to hold my washing powder.

Happy trails,
Chism

Why not cover them with silicone, and then attach rocks, moss, or other things from nature.

I apologize now for mispelling all the crafty words. I'm basically craft-illiterate except for simple, cheap projects.

Fake it -

Use the bucket as a "mold" for paper maiche (sp?) and then never "un-mold" it.

I assume these are the kind with some sort of lip/lid area. If there is a thick rim/lip, then you can paper maiche up to below the lip. If not, stop at least 2 inches short of the lip to allow for spills when watering.

Basically, newsprint, some thinned out elmer's glue or flour/water solution are all that you need.

To paper maiche well, use big, overlapping strips first. Later, switch over to smaller pieces to smooth out and patch down any bumps.

At this point you can decopauge (sp?) with pics from old gardening catalogs.

If you have extra white paper around the house (computer paper etc.) or can steal some from the office, using large strips will give your bucket a paintable surface.

The best part about this project is that you can force your lazy, summer-loving kids to do the paper maiche. If you have older kids, they can do the painting/decopauging as well.

I read a post on Garden Junk forum that had a cool idea that might work...
The person used that foamy stuff 'Great Stuff' or some such, sprayed it on plastic...maybe several coats. Used a knife to give it texture that they wanted. Think they sprayed it with something else, to get the color that they wanted...check out Garden Junk!
Kimmy

Grannyfern - I love that idea with the rocks! It could be just like doing a marble bowling ball, except with rocks!

I've painted those buckets and it worked without priming and sanding. Pooh on painters. Try it--if it doesn't work, THEN do the extra effort.

Thanks for all the great ideas. For those interested, I also posted and got lots of suggestions there to.
Before I do the buckets I'm going to try improving a couple of small plastic 'strawberry' pots by spraying w adhesive then layering on sheet moss. If it works I'll make my wife help me post a pic (and I'm the one who originially showed her computer stuff) 8-)))

One of the gals in our garden club showed us how to use the large black tree pots, to remake them as planters. Buy liquid nails in a tube and make a design on the planter, a big thick X, or scallops, flowers,etc. Then using several related colors of regular spray paint, brown, beige, grey to make it look like stone (it stuck to the black tree pot just fine). I think that the white buckets would require some quick sanding with very course sandpaper, since they are very slick, just to rough up the plastic. I tried to paint a new large planter several years ago, and the paint just flaked off in about a week because I did not sand the slick outside.

Burlap is available at fabric stores for $1 a yard. :-)

Rope wound around them is nice too.

If you have access to pine cones I would think that would be cute glued to cover the sides. I love the idea of the twigs and branches. You could glue various ribbon remnants on the sides to make kind of a patchwork design. How about gluing silk flowers all over it? Look around your craft area, you might be surprised what you could come up with!

Marie

how about painting them w/ that new spray paint that sticks to pastic? Sorry, brain fritz & can't remember the proper name of it, but you can get it at wallyworld & hardware stores. You can paint them all different colors.

I'm going to try gluing on wall paper remnents with Modge Podge Outdoors(thanks to the advice of the Junk forum.)

Springcherry

krylon is name of paint/ I think it is useless trying to disguise them, just use them to make something out of them, first you would have to cut them down to size. You could mosaic them , anything you like, just make sure you put drainage holes in them. Decoupage is only good for inside because it fades out with sunlight

Krylon is a company that makes many different types of paint. The paint for plastic is called Krylon Fusion. They also make a primer that can go on plastic, then you can paint on top of that with other types of paint.

Get thee to a local charity thrift store and scrounge for an elastic-waisted skirt in a toddler size. Look for green or pretty florals or whatever you like. Should camouflage a bucket nicely. You could also get some straw from a bale and stand it up all around the sides of the bucket and wrap with twine to secure it.

I saw a site that took bleach bottle planters and built a frame out of scrap wood, then just set 3 of the 'pots' in the wooden frame. Why not build a square that the bucket can sit in.

We just got back from a restaurant that was using buckets spray painted dark green as planters. The paint started peeling a little bit but not much. They looked great! I am going to paint a few tomorrow. I have a few tin cans spray painted that look great also.