Project:Happiness

I've been really struggling lately with trying to be happy, so, I decided to create some happiness in my life. Thus, Project:Happiness was born. 

I've seen some topsy turvy flower pot arrangements roaming around Pinterest, but I wanted something a little more... colorful. 

You will need 

• 8 terracotta flower pots: 1-12 in, 2-10 in, 3-8.5 in, and 2-6 in.
• 1 small bag of Quikrete 
• 1 3/8" x 48" Rebar pin
• wood stakes cut in various sizes
• spray paint (Krylon)
• flowers
• potting soil

You will need to paint your pots. At first, you'll probably do one at a time in a box... 

but, eventually you'll make your neighbors think you've lost your fucking mind by rolling out packing paper and doing three at a time in the CRAZIEST colors!

The Quikrete and one of the 10 in pots are optional if you want to put rebar directly into the ground. Since this was for our patio, I needed a sturdier base. I placed some foil on the bottom of the pot to cover the hole at the bottom of the pot before pouring in the Quikrete. I only used about 1/2 the bag + about 3/4-1 bottle of water. I needed more water than the directions called for, so just start from there and add more as you need. You want it thick, but wet. (That's what she said. Ha! Ha!... ooh.) 

Painting the pots took several days, much longer than I expected, so I did a few at a time. The yellow pot gave me the most trouble for some reason. 

At nearly $6 per can of spray paint, you could reduce the cost of this project by only using one color of spray paint. You'll probably still use about 3 cans total. 

I painted the bottoms of the pots first, then sides, then half of the inside. It takes about 10 mins to dry between coats. Go slow, watch out for paint dripping!

I didn't take a picture (oops!) of this, but I had some leftover styrofoam that I measured and cut to fit nicely across the inside of the pot. Then, I took some scissors and carefully!!! poked a hole through the center to stabilize the rebar over night while it dried in the concrete. 

You do not need to paint the 10 inch pot that goes on the inside, I ended up deciding the next day I wanted to go a little bigger for the bottom pot.

The next day, you can put the 10 inch pot inside of the 12 inch painted pot and fill it with soil. I placed foil around the sides of the 10 inch pot to prevent soil from falling between the pots. 

I also wrapped foil around the rebar because the bar was rusty and I didn't want to kill the plants with rust. Not sure if the foil will help or make it worse... eek!

 

Take your time and be careful. You might break a nail. (Oh no!!!)

Now comes the tricky, but fun part, filling up the pots!! 

In order to help stabilize the pots, I had wood stakes under one side of each of the pots. You'll have to play around and see what works best for you. 

It's a tricky balance of soil, stakes, and flowers with each new pot being threaded through the center down the rebar. 

I really wanted to go with a rainbow theme with matching colored flowers in each pot. As you can see, I am having trouble finding light blue or turquoise flower to fill one of the pots.. if you don't care, it'll make this a lot easier to find flowers and fill. 

Ta-da! Your neighbors will tell you that your art project turned out beautiful! Well, at least mine did! :)

An up close view. Can you spy the rock-climbing turtle? Go, turtle, go!

This project cost me way more than I anticipated and took way longer that I ever thought possible, but it was SO worth it! Every time I look at it, I can't help but smile!

Project:Happiness, was a success!