Today’s feature will be a summary of the mini project that I’ve been working on over the course of 2023 so far – mini planter pots!

Over six months ago, I visited a local garden shop and acquired four small ceramic flower pots in different colours. Then I spent a month or so working on each pot trying to come up with a unique design, and finally I recently did some clearing up to get the full collection on display!

The aim was to apply different facets of crafting techniques to create the same thing (in this case, a plant) but in different ways (the materials used). Also, I have a lot of stuff that needs using! So I did not have to buy many new materials for this.

I originally wanted to display it under my computer monitor as the pots were not very tall, but then one of the plants ended up a bit taller than I was expecting! So instead, they are on display on the window shelf in my craft room.

You can see how tall the papercraft jasmine flower ended up being! But otherwise they are not that much different in height. I think they look great together and I wanted to make sure that they were kept together!

I’m starting to wonder if I could have come up with more ideas had I been able to purchase more matching pots, or tried my hand at a different method. Maybe a hand-sewn cactus plushie? I know how to do a little sewing and would like to practice it more.

In the summer, the sun is low enough to shine directly into my craft room. I tend to have the blinds pulled down halfway but I like having a bit of natural light, so I have to put a little bit of card up against the window to stop the sun from shining directly onto the plants and bleaching the colour out. I thought it would be nice to show off the colours in this photo though!

If you missed out on the previous blog posts covering these pots, I have linked them below as a handy index.

Plant #1 – the rose quartz gem tree

I have loads of gemstone chips left over from previous projects since I don’t end up using the full string in one go, which is why this was the first thing I thought of and wanted to make. I needed to set aside a fair bit of time preparing all the gemstone chip branches initially (and it really hurts the hands if you do it all in less than a day), but after that it all came together nicely and in less time.

Plant #2 – the origami pentagon rose

I had most of what I needed already to make this, but I had to find a nice sheet of A4 dark green paper to make the calyx. I always seem to be short of good green colours! It doesn’t take long to assemble really, but my bin was filled with various misshaped pentagon roses that I was practicing the pattern on. Since I was only using one rose, it just had to be folded perfectly!

Plant #3 – a small jasmine branch

I was deciding between this or a fuchsia plant for my papercraft project, but I went with jasmine because it was easier for me to freehand draw the template and cut out multiple flowers. This plant requires fast hands because I needed to hot glue everything together, so I was applying small dots of glue and finding that it would dry too quickly! A couple of leaves fell off when I thought I was totally finished, so I had to go over all the pieces again.

Plant #4 – a colourful felt flower collection

I didn’t even think about using felt until I actually found it when going through my drawers, then I managed to put this all together in a matter of hours. When you know the basics of making felt flowers already, it comes together so quickly! I even opted to add more colours and learn new flower types to add variety. I would totally recommend starting out with felt flowers if you want to make something that is both simple and pretty!

Realistically it shouldn’t have taken me over six months to get the whole collection finished, but it’s hard trying to find the time to work on it especially when life has other plans for you! I’m still at hobbyist level after all, it ends up becoming a lower priority for me but I want to be better about it.

On the plus side, I have a couple of craft-related things ongoing for this month, so hopefully you should be hearing from me real soon! Take care, and happy reading!