Goodday,
for cheap pots made with not too much equipment or knowlegde, as well as trying out the ciment fondu (oxides for colour) over shadecloth stitched to chicken wire frames, which works ok, also try making pots from styrofoam.
Easy enough to collect styrofoam for free. Cut to shape with a bread knife or a hack saw blade not in a frame. (Put some sturdy tape around one end of the hack saw blade to create a handle.) Glue together with something like Maxbond, construction glue. You need the gun thingy with the trigger to put the long tubes in. But in Aus these are not expensive. Let the glue set for a day. Then start painting, water based paint. Acrylic paint. Don't use an oil based paint, it dissolves the styrofoam I believe.
It's probably easier to make "rocky" looking planters with the styrafoam than neat perfect flat-finish ones. Some people make it very rocky looking by scratching the finish with a fork - messy but effective. (Do this just after the glue stage) Then if wanted, paint over with mineral turps - the foam starts dissolving, melting away. When you are happy with the look, wash it well in warm soapy water to stop it going any further. Dry for a day or two. Then start painting the colours you want. This is used more to make fake rocks and mountains for your bonsai landscapes - a big advantage being the light weight. That's what I learned it for first, but sometimes I make the whole planter or pot from styrafoam. As I said, it usually looks like the bonsai is planted in a rock, not in a ceramic pot. Here's a few pictures of some I've made, and how they looked before painting up for colour.
Warning: bonsai roots grow into stryofoam, so I don't know about repotting. May destroy the container to do so.... And if you try to pull a bonsai out of a styrofoam container, the roots may well rip off the bonsai and stay in the styrofoam, at least that happens if one strikes cuttings in a styrofoam coffee cup then tries to remove them. It may be necessary to put a layer of mortar or ciment fondu on the inside of a styrofoam planter to deal with this, I'm thinking of trying that. For fake rocks that bonsai are planted beside or onto, often they are not being separated from the rock for repotting, so it's not an issue.
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How some of the styrofoam planters look as they are being made:
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Best of luck
Val Garth
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Also I bought 10 ton gravel that is almost half of it laterite...sieved it all, washed it and I am ready for spring. Also large sand, charcoal and compost are ready.
, you are doing great. Looks like you will be very busy this spring 
)
