• Holiday plants look festive if they are planted in a decorated Christmas planter.poinsettia image by Marek Kosmal from Fotolia.com
  
  Christmastime is a wonderful time to bring out your most seasonal and festive items, as well as to spend some time getting creative making some new ones. As the trend toward environmental sustainability continues to become more popular, people are choosing to buy more living plants than cut. This includes smaller living Christmas trees, poinsettias and all kinds of other winter plants. The planter can be painted to take the place of a tree skirt and add even more holiday charm to the overall piece.
  
  

Santa's Workshop

• Elves are tiny creatures that work with Santa Claus to make all the toys that little girls and boys will receive on Christmas day. Though their workshop is said to be located at the North Pole, it could also be located at the base of your Christmas plant. Paint different elves working on different toys all the way around the base of the planter. They can be hammering the legs of rocking horses, sewing the eyes on dolls and tying bow ties around the necks of teddy bears. There can also be a wrapping station and an elf referring to the “Naughty and Nice List” that Santa keeps.
  
  

Train Scene

• Many people have trains that run on tracks around Christmas centerpieces or Christmas trees in the house. This would be a beautiful scene to see painted on a Christmas planter. The train should be an old type of coal powered train with an elegant looking engine and smoke puffing out into a starry night sky. You can have the train move through any kind of terrain you like, but the base of a mountain will give you a lot of perspective. Have the tracks wind up into that mountain and get smaller as they get farther away. Snow should also definitely be a part of this scene.
  
  

Forest Scene

• If you want to keep the feel of your Christmas tree being alive even more than planting it in a pot, you can simulate the look of it still living in a snowy forest. From the top of the pot, pain the continuation of the tree’s trunk to the base of the ground, which can actually be a bit higher than the bottom of the pot to add more room for the snowy ground. Paint the snowy ground from the bottom to the base of the tree’s trunk as if to show the tree rooted in a mound or small hill. Paint the background behind the trunk a dark blue to simulate the night sky You can even add a few pine cones on the snowy ground, or a few little animals like chipmunks enjoying the holiday with you. This type of planter works best when set outside to really make it feel natural.