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Hatch & Haven

Wood Planter Box – Monthly DIY Challenge

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Welcome to this months Monthly DIY Challenge!  If you saw last months challenge, you heard the news that these challenges were going to be a monthly affair!  The challenges will be held every second Wednesday of the month, where we will all take the same item and create something in our own unique way!  Make sure to also follow our Monthly DIY Challenge board on Pinterest so you don’t miss a thing!

clear_ornament_challenge

 

As you can see above this months challenge is all about clear ornaments.  Your first thought would be to make some sort of Christmas ornament out of it, since clearly that is what it says in the name.  I on the other hand, went a totally different direction with it.  I used the clear ornaments as vases in a wood planter box filled with green and brown luscious moss.  Here is how it all came together!

Wood Planter Box

Wood Planter Box

 

What you will need:

  • 15″ wood crate that can be found at Michaels  
  • moss
  • 3 plastic clear round ornaments
  • rocks
  • stain or paint
  • plants
  • 2 foam bricks
  • tacky glue

Wood Planter Box Supplies

 

I first started off by staining the wood using Minwax in color special walnut.  Once dry, then I painted it with a coat of polyurethane to seal it.

Wood Planter Box Step 1

 

While the wood crate is drying, I then started getting the foam ready.  The foam is used to keep the ornaments sturdy and in place.  To make that happen though, I had to do some minor tweaking to one of the foam bricks.  I placed each ornament where I wanted them, then traced around them onto the foam.  Then I cut/carved out the foam with a spoon.

IMG_1024

 

I then glued the foam brick that I didn’t carve to the bottom of the wood crate, then glued the carved one on top of that.

Wood Planter Box Step 3

Wood Planter Box Step 4

 

Once I got the ornaments out of the package, I realized they were glass…AGH!  Decided to still just go with glass, but soon discovered that was a bad idea.  While putting the rocks in, glass started easily breaking if I didn’t place the rocks in one by one and very gently.  So back to the craft store it was to get some plastic ones.  So much better using plastic.  I think if I still ended up using the glass ones, they wouldn’t be able to withstand the weight of the rocks and would have eventually started breaking.  I mean the glass was so thin and brittle even just the slightest shut of a window would break them!  Once I had the correct ornaments, I filled them up about half way to the top with some decorative rocks that can be found at Michaels.

Wood Planter Box Step 5

 

Once the foam bricks were dry and glued down to the wood, I took my moss and placed it all along the sides and the top.

moss

 

I used some fake plants in the vases, as that is what I had on hand from another project I was going to use it on.  I know, I know  I am sure a lot of you thinking “Fake plants!”  Honestly fake works for me, because for the life of me I cannot keep plants alive.  Although I did manage to keep my succulents alive all summer long that I had in my succulent planter :).   I do think eventually I am going to switch them out with some succulents or something, but for now  I just went with these since I already had them, making it easy.  This project really came together as I had envisioned, and I couldn’t be more thrilled with how everything turned out!  Who knew that clear ornaments would make perfect little vases!

 

Wood Planter Box

Wood Planter Box 2

Planter box with Clear Ornament vases

clear ornament planter box

 

Now let’s see what all the other lovely ladies created with their clear ornaments!

 


 

You can find me linking up here!

Reader Interactions

Comments

    • Tara says

      What are these terrariums you speak of?! haha! See that is why fake plants work for me, I have no clue the name of the plant that I even put in my vases 🙂 Thank you, Bre!

      Reply

    • Tara says

      Thank you, Michelle. I agree with you, come spring I am going to put some fresh REAL flowers in mine and cross my fingers I don’t kill them 🙂

      Reply

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