Spring has sprung!
It’s finally getting warm up here in Canada
and its fantastic. Garden centers are
starting to pop everywhere around where I live and I can only assume the same
is happening for you (which I know is a silly assumption to make on the
internet). There’s a long weekend coming
up for me and I want to start working on my garden! Today I want to show you a gardening DIY that
you can make in weekend, (probably even less). It’s pretty
simple but it really packs a punch in any backyard. This idea started when I noticed that plastic flower boxes are
really over prices, I'm not willing to pay $30 for a piece of plastic that I only use 4 months of the year. So I decided that would take simple inexpensive
flower boxes and make them awesome. My parents donated their old flower boxes to me that they hadn't used since they changed the layout of their backyard a couple summers ago. So project only cost me the cost price of the spray paint, which I’m using in
other projects, the other
materials I found around my house and you probably can too.
Materials:
-Simple Flower boxes (if you can’t find used ones, your
local dollar store or garden will have a basic (ugly) flower box for a couple bucks)
-One or two cans of spray paint in the color of your choice,
I’m using Krylon Colormaster Metallic in the color Silver and Gold. It has a
built in primer which is kinda nice to have in your spray paint
-Painters tape
-Newspapers
-A beautiful day free on much humidity, this will allow your
paint to dry faster.
- If your using a old flower box you need you clean it. I just went into my backyard with my house and a rag and washed all the dirt off.
Before cleaning the planter
sides can dry
After cleaning the planters
3..Lay out some newspaper on your working surface (I’m using the lawn in my backyard). If you like add some rocks on the edges of the paper the wind won’t blow it around as much.
4.Spray a base coat, be careful not to get paint
on yourself. Give yourself about half an
hour before you flip it over to do the other side of the box and probably more
than an hour between coats to make sure the paint dries. Be mindful of wind directions when you’re spraying. You don’t
want to be down wind of all the paint dust that flies up. Also be located in a well ventilated area, I
did this outside because there nothing better ventilated than nature. For this I covered the whole thing in silver first just to ensure there wouldn't be any green showing through the spots were the two colors intersect.
5. If you want to do some color blocking you'll take your painters tape and us it to block the area. I used to different patterns for the two flower boxes that I was using. For one the top will be gold and the bottom silver, and the other silver and gold strips that match the curves of the box. You want your tape and newspaper that fits the area you want to block out.
The Planters before the gold was added
6. Spray paint the second color if you want to do that, and add coats as needed. I needed to put two for the gold to really look good.
Both planters after one coat of gold
 |
| Look at that crisp line |
With that your done! Fill it up with some dirt and you now have an awesome flower box without having to break the bank at the garden center.
Leave a comment below if you have any questions I'll try to answer them.
Happy Spring!
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