Studio 27 - By Jennifer Adams: DIY Artificial Plants

After spending the majority of my winter crafting time creating fake display foods, I started to wonder if I could do up some flower pots as well. It turns out that I can, and so can you!

Read on to see how easy it is:

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Supplies

Here is what I started with; paper cups and cauldrons from Dollar Tree, Great Stuff spray foam and some marbles.

I had planned on getting more of the terracotta looking plastic pots from Dollar Tree, but they were all out. Looking around I decided why not try some of their party cups? You can get 12 of the regular size or 6 of the large size for just a dollar and I figured that I could paint them. The cauldrons (also Dollar Tree) seem to only be available around St Patrick's day. I went ahead and picked them up now even though I intend to use them for Halloween 😉

Before filling the containers with the Great Stuff spray foam, I like to weigh them down with marbles that I pick up either at the thrift store or Dollar Tree. This combination of weight and foam is the same process that I use when making faux cupcakes, I'll do a post soon!

Following the directions on the Great Stuff can, you will want to shake well and wear gloves/eye protection. It can take some getting used to, but you want to aim to fill your container just a little over halfway full. Because the spray foam is intended to use as a method of insulation, it will expand as it dries.

Here is a tutorial video from The Pink Tree where Dawn Newell demonstrates use of the spray foam.

You can click here to browse Dollar Tree's online selection of party supplies

or here to find the Great Stuff spray foam on Amazon.

You can see in the top photo that the spray foam tends to dry kind of lumpy. This is no big deal when making cupcakes, but since I wanted my flower pots to have a nice and even surface, I used a serrated knife to trim them down. Once trimmed I sprayed my containers with a few different paint colors. I figured gold would work well for everyday while the pink and aqua would be great for spring. The black of course if for my Halloween ideas.

In this photo you can see my pots after hot gluing a variety of mosses; Spanish, reindeer and sheet moss, to cover the foam. All of these mosses can be found at Dollar Tree, either in store or online.

*A couple of my cauldrons I left un-mossed. This is because I'll probably make them look as though they have some sort of potion filling using spackle. You can click here to see what I mean 😊

With my containers full of foam, mossed and painted, it was time to choose florals!

Some of these I already had in my bin while Others I picked up from Dollar Tree.

To begin you will simply cut one floral stem away from it's larger bush using wire cutters...

...and pop it right into your foam container!

For extra stability you can always add a bit of glue at the base of the stem.

Continue adding leaves and floral stems until you are happy with your arrangement.

And that's how easy it is to make decorative floral pots!

Here are the rest of what I put together:

In my cauldrons I wanted to look like I was growing herbs for potions. To achieve this look I simply skipped the flowers and stuck with greens only.

I plan to use these alongside my Halloween potion bottles.

You can check those out here.

What if the artificial flowers that your are using are all plastic with no sturdy wire stem?

That was the case with my faux grass, but no problem, just use a paper clip or other small wire to create your own stem 😉

There might be a bit of the wire that shows, but once you get the bulk of your plant created you can fix that. Just hot glue some more of your stems to cover up the mechanics and you are good to go!