DIY Glow In The Dark Planters

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Glow In The Dark Planters

There are tons of photos going around social media about Glow In The Dark Planters.  I just had to try to do this for myself.  I want glow in the dark planters in my back yard too!

Just look at how beautiful these are!

Glow in the dark planters(Image Source)

Someone started a DIY project idea stating these planters could be made with Rust-Oleum’s Glow In The Dark spray paint.  Chris and I were so excited to make some of our own.  Before going out and buying a beautiful planter and this amazing spray paint we decided to grab what we had already and see if we could achieve a similar outcome.

DIY Glow in the dark planters

We had this beautiful red planter and a can of our own glow in the dark spray paint.  We sprayed one layer and waited about 30 minutes, then sprayed another layer.  The planter was well coated.  The glow in the dark spray paint creates a yellowish color film layer which made that beautiful red gloss look dull and unattractive during the daylight.   Here’s a close up of the glow in the dark spray paint results:

glow in the dark planter experiment

I would be okay with that dull color during the day if this really works is what my inside voice was telling me!!!

I patiently waited for the evening to see our results.

Our result……

Not good!  I wanted to include the photo I took but it’s just a big screen of blackness.  I couldn’t even see my planter in the dark at all!  I did take it into the bathroom where there’s no window and pitch blackness and it did glow but only slightly.  We were highly disappointed.  My guess is that you would need cans, upon cans of paint to achieve this glow.  We honestly wondered if the photo above was photoshopped.

After a bit more research we learned there are LED Planters out there!  This means there are planters that glow in the dark because they have lights in them.  I want glowing planters!!!  I ended up purchasing a Instapark Flower Power Color changing LED Plant pot for only $14.95 on Amazon.  At this point I was wondering if this would even work.

To my surprise it DOES WORK!!!  It’s beautiful too!  I choose the planters that have 7 different colors and they are vibrant and beautiful!  I took a few photos of each color as they were changing and created a photo so you can see all the colors!  I can tell you this flower pot looks amazing outside in the dark too!  (these photos don’t do the actual product any justice because it looks beautiful outside at night)

LED Flower Pot

We were really hoping we were going to be able to show you a fun and exciting DIY Glow in the Dark Flower pot that actually worked but we are here to tell you that project was a huge fail and please don’t waste your money on it.  Now, we didn’t buy the Rust-Oleum Glow in the dark paint either though.  My thoughts on that are, those paints are all pretty much the same or just slightly different and we didn’t get a really good result in the first place to make me want to try it again.

Oh, and I did purchase some Solar Chameleon Crackle Glass Ball LED Lights too!

Solar Chameleon Crackle Glass Ball LED LightsI love the glow look these yard decorations put out and they are worth the money!!

 

Glowing Glass ornament

I found the Solar Crackle Glass Ball Lights (pack of 3) here on Amazon.

I don’t know about you but I am ready for the spring!  If you have any tips or tricks to making your own DIY Glow in the dark planters I would love to hear about them.

Stay tuned!  We will have plenty of garden stuff coming too!

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43 Comments

  1. Thank you so much for your review! I was super excited as you were when I found the posts on DIY Glow in the Dark planters. I was just about to makeover my front pathway with these beautiful additions. I’m so thankful that I didn’t waste my time or money. Instead, I think I will be visiting Amazon to get some LED accesories. Thanks again!

    1. Question. Could it be that the flower pot you purchased and used was a high glossy color and you might have needed a clay pot or one that did not have a glossy color???
      Might be worth a try to find a pot that will absorb the color paint. The high gloss might have prevented the absorption of the paint from glowing in the dark???

      1. i also saw the picture of the glow plant pots and i bought the rustoleum glow in the dark paint and i used a stone plantpot that was white i sprayed them both till they were a pale green and waited and like yourselves NOTHING ..so it doesnt work at all I will be amazed to find out what it does work on but i as yet havent found it so its solar pots for me …dont waste your time and money

      2. I also tried the Rust-o-Leum brand on a step-on-stone. I DID NOT WORK either. Just save your money and don’t waste your time either.

        1. Correct! It just doesn’t work! Not ever! Ican’t tell you how many coats I put on. Now the floor of my garage is still glowing….

  2. Thank you so much. I hope that this gets a lot of attention. I knew when I first saw all of the Facebook posts about what could be done with Rustoleum glow-in-the-dark paint, that the pictures that accompanied them were not of actual results. Anyone with any experience with glow paint would know this, but most haven’t tried and give it way more credit than it deserves. I’d advise friends, one by one, to try something small before diving head first and experiencing huge disappointment. Thanks for the article. Keep up the good work.

  3. I have loved this idea when I first saw it on pintrest. Thanks for shining a light on led planters! I will visiting Amazon soon.

  4. I got excited about Glow in the dark painted rocks. I planned to use them to line the paths. BUT it didn’t work. Like you they glowed in the full dark inside but not in the light polluted outdoors in the city. So I use the paint for marking inside the house, light switches and stair edges and such.

  5. The Rustoleum Glow In The Dark paint specifically states that you can use on “unglazed” ceramics. Maybe that’s why it didn’t work as well.

  6. If you read the directions on the can, it says you should paint item white or light color before adding the “glow” paint. That being said, I know this because I too tried to paint an item (red n black bowling ball) to try to make a glowing ball for my garden. I didn’t paint mine white first (read directions AFTER it didn’t glow) so once I read the directions, I painted it white then added a couple of coats of glow paint and it still didn’t work. Added two more coats, nada. I took my almost empty can back to the store and got my $8 back. IMO, skip the glow paint. It’s junk.

  7. Last year I did buy some glow in the dark spray paint. I was also so disappointed! I sprayed a old bowling ball to display on a pedestal. Then I was told it will only work if the item is first painted white. I didn’t go buy more paint to see if that would work.

  8. Did you shake the cans well? Sometimes paint cans settle everything on the bottom. Just trying to eliminate a possibility, cause it is such a nice idea. Thank you for your post.
    Jack

  9. I tried flower pot, rocks, concrete, mailbox, even a tree!. Nothing worked with glow in dark spray paint. Wasted time and money.

  10. The painted item needs to be primed and painted with the glow paint then left in bright light or sunlight for 3+ hours to “charge”. Should be placed in dark area to show up. FAQ on Rustoleum website.

  11. I have used the rust o leum and the krylon on both glazed and unglazed pots of various colors. The best thing to use is glow in the dark powder concentrate ( I got mine from here: https://www.glonation.com/ ) and polyurethane. It does well but, you will never achieve the results in the above picture with paint of any kind. The led pots are really cool and if that’s the effect you want then I say spend the money to get what you truly want

  12. I bought the original glow in the dark paint and painted a flower pot and an iron statue. NOTHING!!!
    Waste of my money!

  13. We tried this over the weekend. First of all, the “glow” paint is ridiculously expensive. We bought two cans and one flower pot, but we chose a plastic pot since we were already spending more than we had anticipated for the paint. EPIC FAIL!! We also painted some yard art pieces we had and we left all of them to sit out in full sun for 8+ hours. When the sun went down there was no evidence whatsoever that anything had even a little bit of glow paint. We were disappointed and our kiddos were too. We’ll be returning the unused can of paint to get our $10 back. 🙁

  14. Hi there
    I’m also sad to say… Failure.
    Spent $35 on a large flower pot, plus $20 on Disney glow in the dark paint.
    After 3 coats and lot of work… Huge disappointment .
    I can’t even see the damn pot at all!!

    🙁

  15. I tried everything, I sprayed glow in the dark paint on white paint, and let it charge all day in the sun.
    Nothing,
    Then I tried adding 4-5 coats of paint, still nothing, then I tried paint, not spray paint but glow in the dark paint
    They Carrie small cans at Home Depot and Lowes. Still nothing.
    Great ideal just doesn’t work.

  16. I wish I’d googled this before my mom got all excited and bought the spray paint- I bought new pots, sprayed them white, as the Rustoleum directions told me to do, then sprayed 3-4 coats of the translucent glow paint on them. They glow very very faintly. Not great for path markers at all. Anyway, thanks for debunking this hoax for others- your experience should help them.
    ~Litha Nelle

  17. Should have done research before rushing out to get “glow in the dark” spray paint. Questioned the clerk at Home Depot. Was told oh yes this will work on outside flower pots. That is a joke. Wonder how the pots were done that are posted on Facebook.

  18. I tried the glow in the dark planters, or pots, It did not work. I started with a white surface, let it dry complete .
    I was so proud of my planters, sit them in full sun, waited until night fall, nothing, not even a little glow.
    Every day I would spray paint a new layer of paint. The pots have about five layers of glow paint.
    After two weeks in the full sun, the pots are starting to turn black with some kind of air bubbles in the paint.
    I don’t know if it’s where I live, it’s pretty hot here, well over 100 on any given day.
    I’m really sad because I thought this was such a good ideal., it just doesn’t work. Back to the drawing board.

  19. has anyone tried glow in the dark powder from United unclear? they say you put this with a clear sealer. just want to know if this works before I spend money it’s expensive.

  20. google spray on life paint developed by volvo pricy but I think it may be what you are looking for. I too fell in love with the glow in the dark paint. But it’s obvious they were using something more than Rustoleum paint to attain success. the spray life paint is $110.00 for a small can but is more a reflective paint so would require some type of lighting in the garden as well. Guess we could all use the Rustoleum and place little black lights through out the gardens.

  21. The photo you saw was not photoshopped. It is, however, a high end LED planter, NOT a spray painted glow-in-the-dark pot. I found the original somewhere online this spring using the exact same photo to sell the LED planter. There is NO WAY you can get that kind of illumination out of glow in the dark paint.

  22. That first picture is actually LED lighted pots, not glow in the dark paint. Glad that you found something that works for you though. 🙂

  23. I did try the Rustoleum Glow Max 2x spray paint, it does glow in the dark but is very hard to get an even coat. I went and purchased the brush on version which is much easier to use and coats better. I used plastic textured planters ,I am not extremely satisfied with the results on plastic so I am going to try it on a clay pot.

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