Our Lowe's and Ace hardware have spray paint lines that are designed to go onto plastic without a primer. One of them is even in 12 or 15 colors that are planned to go with currently popular house/trim colors. That is what we've planned to use on our barrels (but haven't, yet).

One rain barrel we saw at our farmers' market had flowers made with kids' handprints as the blossom. It was cute, but primitive in artsy terms. I have lots of creative juices, but none of the painting variety.

I look forward to seeing what others post.

~ freshair

Was thinking . . . you might get more hits from the garden junk forum. Those ladies are crazy about adding bling to their gardens, terribly innovative, and love to post pictures of their work.

this is a great question - I have been very interested in the concept of "rain barrels" but have noticed that obnoxious blue and decided that I didn't want that in my yard. I also don't like all the exposed corrugated piping everywhere. Surely somebody can make an attractive rain barrel for the consumer home market. This product needs a design team!

My rain barrel is blue. It is a 55 gallon metal drum. It sits on the back of my husbands shop and is never seen, so who cares. Another identical barrel sits in the middle of my back yard. I made a planter out of it. First I tried paint pens and drew flowers on it. The following year I cover the entire this with cement and small rocks. Much better. That was 7 years ago. It is still there and looks great!

arcy....do you have a pic of your rain barrel? Like the idea of rocks. Did you have to use chicken wire around the barrel?

have seen many sites with this idea - rain barrel art

http://www.jrbp.missouristate.edu/rain_barrel_art.html

Thought you might like this link of how other people decorated their rain barrels.

Tracy

Here is a link that might be useful: Rain Barrels ~ all done up! :O)