I’ve shared before that a lot of my DIY love & roots come from crafting growing up. My sisters & I would spend hours at our craft table in the basement making messes with various mediums. Our parents were a big part of our growing creativity.
This week, I decided to go back to those creative beginnings and enjoy a fun craft project. After all, crafting is the original DIY, and sometimes exactly what the heart & mind needs.
With Dylan going back to school for the year, all of his beautiful classroom plants that I’ve been able to enjoy all summer now have to go back to the classroom with him. So of course I needed to replace them with some new plants at home. P.S. I think my indoor house plant count is around 50 now.
I felt inspiration from several of my DIY friends for this project, but knew my project would be on a much smaller scale. I decided to use air dry clay to make a few plant pots of my own. It’s been years since I worked with any type of clay, and it was definitely fun to see what I could come up with. I quickly realized that I wasn’t the best at working with the clay, so I decided to attach it to some extra plastic grow pots that I had on hand to give a better shape. This also works well because the plants will be in their original grow pots inside the pots.
I let the clay dry according to the package and while that was happening, I decided I wanted to also add some faux terrazzo details. My friend Lizzy made these stunning faux terrazzo countertops for the One Room Challenge, and I knew that she had made her own paint chips. I followed the instructions in her blog post on how to make my own paint chips here.
It was actually way easier than I thought. You use interior latex paint, and paint layers onto parchment paper. The thicker you lay it on, the better paint chips you will get. This is a great project if you have just a bit of leftover paint lying around. I used the paint from my garage mural. Once the paint is fully dried, it peels off the parchment easily, and you can rip it into different shapes or cut it with scissors. I did a bit of both, and then mixed up all the colors so I’d distribute the colors easily.
Next I gave the pots a coat of satin polycrylic which will help seal them, but it also gives the paint chips something to stick to. Working in sections, I hand laid each paint chip on the pot, and then put another coat of polycrylic on top to secure the chips in place.
After the pots were done, it was time for some macrame hangers. Now these are typically made of cotton rope, but I decided I wanted a little more texture since the plant pots were already white. I made one hanger out of sisal rope and one out of jute rope. The best way to describe this process is you take six pieces of rope, and you knot them together in 2’s forming a sort of cage around the planter until it feels secure. The sisal rope adds some amazing texture but was much more difficult to work with, and honestly smells like a barn. The jute rope was much more pliable, and for fun, I chose to hot glue some pink yarn around the joints to give it a pop of color.
The last step was hanging these in front of the window. Even though they aren’t heavy, I decided to put my hooks in the ceiling studs to make sure the planters wouldn’t come down. I used a battery powered stud finder to figure out where to drill my holes. When you drill into a ceiling stud, you want to drill at an angle so that the hook screws in at an angle, otherwise I hook will just slowly come out. With that, my little craft project was done.
These little planters bring a fun pop of color, texture, and life to this space. I love that I can say, I chose to have a slow week to make something that brings me joy. It always feels good to make something with your own two hands. This project covered my hands in white clay, paint, polycrylic, hot glue, & soil before it was done, and it was all worth it. Now go make yourself some faux terrazzo hanging planters, and enjoy making messes while doing it!
bonita by rachel 