Any paint will work if you spill paint on a concrete driveway good luck getting it out. I just water it down because I like concrete painting to look stained and not painted. I add 3 to 1.......... 3 water ...1 paint.

Great information Cinta.

Seems like there ought to be a lot of things that would color/stain porous concrete. Liquid shoe polish (do they still make that), strong coffee, diluted paint, aniline dyes, furniture stains. Why wouldn't any of those be a possibility? Come gather up my grasshoppers! Right now they've been muching on some of my plants and their normally tobacco colored juice is a really attractive shade of red grape. I'm sure it would stain concrete! You'll need to catch a lot of them, but I wouldn't mind. Come take them all if you want .

Donald, what a great list of ideas for coloring the cement.
Wonder if you can milk the juice from the grasshoppers and keep them in captivity?

Oh Lynn:

Furniture stain does not work well because of the oil. I tried that on bricks it washed off with the rains. Probably would have the same problem with shoe polish. Anything that has oil seems to sit on top and the oil stops the stain from saturating and getting into the stone.. Anything that is paint has color and without the oil so it goes deep into the stone.

You can get any color paint you can dream of at Lowes and Home Depot. They have sample colors for 2.00. I do not know if every Lowes and HD do this but I go to their mistake area and pick up these little paint samples for 1.00. They are the size of a small tub of margarine container. That is a lot of paint for little projects.

My disclaimer..........
I am only saying from what I experienced trying to stain concrete and bricks. There is no scientific info involved in this response.

I think the aniline dyes are dissolved in an alcohol base. I think the liquid shoe polishes also used to be alcohol based as well - at least some of them. That was back in the 60s and earlier on the shoe polish, though. If they still manufacture it at all, it may not be the same. For a pot that is going to be out in the weather, I think UV resistant paint might be worth getting if you use paint. I know here in Texas a lot of colors fade rapidly in our sunlight. Using a Sharpie pen for a label frequently doesn't last until fall. I think something labeled as UV resistant would be a lot more durable.

Ok, who is going to try to milk a grasshopper??

You have to herd them first, then get their heads through those vertical rail things, then...

We could get his grasshoppers and get one of those Indonesian monkey/cats that eat coffee beans and pop out expensive coffee for 30.00 a cup.

We could drink expensive poop coffee and use poop paint.

I would like to know who thought it was a good idea to make a cup of coffee with the poop when they found it on the ground.

"Meet the Asian Palm Civet. Also known as a Toddy Cat, he is a feline-sized mammal native to Southeast Asia. Civets like to eat red coffee berries and beans. In the jungles in which they live, they find the sweetest, ripest ones and munch on them with their cute little faces. But they can’t digest them, so the berries and beans come out as poop.

One day, humans discovered that the enzymes in the civets’ tummies break down the coffee’s bitterness, leaving behind an extremely delicious pooped bean. They took the poop home, washed it lightly, roasted it, ground it, poured boiled water over it, and drank it. Tastes like caramel and chocolate! Thus spawned a small industry of poop-coffee-making."

Oh Ack, Cinta.
Just ack.

I agree with Sharon, Ack!!!!

I am a tea drinker so I cannot say good or bad but the people I know have tasted it say it is the best coffee they have ever had. But for 30.00 a cup they might had to say that.

I wonder if it would be good to stain a pot.

@CDsSister Marilyn, instead of being somebody's sister, I am gonna think of you as BukisMom...I like your new avatar!

pardalinum said:You have to herd them first, then get their heads through those vertical rail things, then...

Oh Connie:

and Cinta: Yuck!!! Now I know something I didn't want to know...

Tell you what, Connie, you and Cinta try it first, OK? You can even have my share.
Ack and Yuck, Bev. It's all worthy of both words.

Good thing I don't care for caramel. But chocolate... that's another matter!

Sharon said:Tell you what, Connie, you and Cinta try it first, OK? You can even have my share.
Ack and Yuck, Bev. It's all worthy of both words.

Nope I will pass. I don't like coffee or chocolate unless it has nuts. I am a tea drinker.

I really laughed when I saw what they did upon discovery.' WASHED IT LIGHTLY.... HUH!!!!!

They took the poop home, washed it lightly, roasted it, ground it, poured boiled water over it, and drank it.