How to paint terracotta pots that are already planted?

Use milk paint or chalk paint and then seal with wax or a coating of polyurethane your brush on. Although clay pots are porous, the paint should not harm your plants. You can spray paint, and your idea with the plastic bag is good, but I don't use aerosol paint unless I have to.

Wayde....With the dirt and plants already in the pot I would not spray paint but you could possibly place on a shelf or something high so you could reach (and see what you are doing) and paint with a brush. This will help you get under the top lip as you move it around w/o bothering the plant should it be hanging over a little. I hope this is making sense to you! On the other hand, you can buy some pretty napkins with bugs, flowers, etc., use one ply only and tear the item you want to use off carefully then use mod podge to adhere to the pot. You can find napkins with little sayings .... soooo many. Use mod podge on pot first, apply napkin then mod podge on top of it. You can seal with polyurethane. Good luck!

I have used plastic bags over my herbs when touching up the spray paint on my plastic pots. I just buried the edges of the bag around the inside of the pot.

Your challenge will be terra cotta will hold moisture which will cause the paint to peal but you can't let the plants completely dry out. I would try it when as dry as possible.

I have also added mosaic tile or broken plates to terra cotta pots. I save my dropped and broken plates for this.

people always want to seal/paint terra cotta pots---the whole idea behind using terra cotta is so the plants/roots can breathe thus them being pourous. However if you insist.... it needs sealed from the inside of pot because if you just do outside the terra cotta will get moist from inside and fall apart or whatever is on outside paint/sealer will begin to peel off. Succulents need to be on drier side so the unsealed terra cotta pots are good for them,just use some saucers under them so they do not get surface they are sitting on wet or stained. you can get lots of nice things to use as saucers at Goodwill--teacups,crystal trays etc..

Hello all, thank you for your suggestions and comments! Based on the concern over using spray paint and the safety of the plants being able to have their roots breathe properly, I just tried a different method. I found some nice metallic "washi" tape and some twine. I figured I would wrap the pots in some tape and then tie a bow using twine around the top to give it nicer look than just plain terracotta. I have come to find that both trying to use tape and trying to tie twine around the sloped portion of the pot to be extremely difficult. I now wish I had just done spray paint as that would have been so much easier. Getting twine around the more straight rim of the pot is doable, but getting the decorative tape on the body of the pot has not worked. Clearly I am a novice here - I am a dude that is not the artsy craftsy type, just trying to jazz up this massive collection of terracotta pots into something that looks nicer for the home. I actually have all the pots in a design with shelves on the wall leading into my home but it looks bland with so much terracotta color. I thought I could at least handle tape and twine but apparently not. I appreciate any other suggestions you guys may have! Thanks again!

And just for reference, the pots are only 4-inches (for small succulents) do have drainage holes and I have saucers underneath all of them.

I did this a couple of years ago for my daughter's wedding. I taped plastic around the plants and spray-painted the planters. Worked great!