Gorgeous Summer Craft!

Ah, Pinterest, that source of everything we ever needed or wanted to know about anything ... and so much more.  I initially refused my dear Deb Ricker's invitations re Pinterest, to "just look at it" or "I think you'd really like this."  Then one night at SBX she wore me down and voila!  The rest is history.

In the intervening years my boards have grown in number and organization; new ones were birthed, and I have kept my word to myself to try 'at least' one new pin daily for every 10 that I save.  It's a great way to keep myself honest in my pinning and prevents any haphazard gathering of information I'll never use.  At least, that's what I tell myself!

On a recent trip to Facebook, I saw the most lovely project which screamed SUMMER!  Here's where I found the inspiration for what follows:  http://cfabbridesigns.com/gardening-and-floral/fall-candle-planters/#.WTvz6etHarV.  I encourage you to go to cfabbridesigns.com and view that craft, as you may like it better than my own version.  It includes fresh flowers, which would be lovely.  But since we're in the midst of a June heat wave here in NoNV (think Ella Fitzgerald singing 'Tropical Heat Wave'), I thought silk flowers would have a better chance of survival.

I began with a 'Shop it Out' list.  As often happens when I begin a list, my creative juices started to flow.  I encourage you, if you're not a plotter or planner or pre-scanner or list-maker, try it just once.  For me.  Because it's truly amazing how useful that process can be in drafting yourself a blueprint.

My 'Shop it Out' list of supplies looked like this: 

2 medium terra cotta pots / 2 lrg terra cotta pots / 2 terra cotta saucers to fit the bottoms of the large pots / 2 hurricane shades / Bag of dark pebbles / Beach sand / Quality silk florals

Now immediately I had visions of grandeur.  Why use plain hurricanes when you could etch hurricanes?  (More later on etching, but suffice it to say this project grew legs and ran away with itself!)  One of the first questions I asked myself was "hurricane shades or hurricane vases?".  Let's keep it real, shall we?  I am a HUGE fan of Dollar Tree.  And when I find quality merch there (which I do every time I walk in the door), I snatch it up so fast that the salespeople's heads spin.  This is what happened when I went in search of hurricane shades:  Instead of $7-20 shades out there in fancy-world, I found vases for -- you guessed it! -- ONE DOLLAR EACH at Dollar Tree!  First ingredient, um, supply -- BAM!  Like a gangster!  One down, several more to gather.

The pots were a breeze.  Michaels had them, and I had Michaels coupons, which is a match made in heaven.  When snagging them off the shelf, I made the executive decision to use only a medium pot with a saucer rather than nestling one pot inside another.  For fresh flowers, this is a great idea; for silks, it was unnecessary.

I had a bag of pebbles at home that I purchased at Dollar Tree for a different craft; but as I'd not done that one yet, they were free to a good home.  YAY!  Another item down.  And as I was headed to the beach that very weekend, I was sticking with the plan to use actual beach sand rather than purchasing generic sand (gasp!). 

At this stage of the game, I knew I'd use a filler for the majority of the pot.  As I have a shredder that cross-cuts, I was able to X one more thing off my list.  Because who needs to fill something full of a thing when one can simply use fillers?  Did Martha Stewart teach us nothing?  No, in fact she did not teach us nothing.  She taught us to be smart and frugal.  Thank you, Martha!  (Bubble wrap in pot on the right explained below.)

The same trip to Michaels that yielded terra cotta pots also yielded awesome silk florals.  Choose the ones that work for you.  I found stuff I loved that didn't cost an arm and two legs.  Plus, I had an amazing 50% off coupon which allowed me to buy the best-quality roses for HALF OFF.  Yup.  That happened.

I already owned a goodly supply of battery-operated votive candles that I'd stocked up on for a snowman craft I found (where else?!) on Pinterest.  One more supply crossed off the list. 

Finally, the day arrived for me to joyously assemble these darling pots.  As I looked at the, well, the 'newness' of the terra cotta, I decided I wanted to add some character.  I skimmed through a couple of YouTube videos on aging pots and got the general gist of what I was gonna do.  Then I looked down and saw the leftover blob of chalk paint and drying pouncer from stenciling our chalk 'welcome' sign.  It was right in front of me on the craft table.  Ding!  Lightbulb moment!  "You, hey you!  Why don't you use that almost-dry pouncer with the white chalk paint on it to get the look you're after?"  Wowsers.  Don't you just love inspiration?  Whether a food recipe or a craft project, my motto is 'USE WHAT YOU HAVE', and what I had was right in front of me!  I pounced on an uneven ring of white to simulate the calcium ring on an old pot and it came out just as I hoped.  New pots:

And pots with character:

Pebbles add that special something:

Now back to assembly.  As mentioned above, the filler I used was cross-cut shredded paper (safe and lightweight).  I topped that with a circle of used bubble-wrap (cut in the shape of the widest part of the pot) for added stability, which worked perfectly.  And I was glad I started the project before etching the glass because the way I loaded the florals, they went up rather high on the hurricane.  Etching would have been superfluous.  I gently filled in around the outside edge between the hurricane and the pot with the Dollar Tree pebbles.

At this point, I had to pause until my weekend trip to the ocean landed me some beach sand.  I wasn't worried about the paper showing through on the inside, as I knew the sand would cover it completely.  Another aspect of this is, because I am using battery-operated votives, I had no worry about how hot the glass would get when burning the candle.  This meant I could build up the sides of the glass with silk florals.  If you're using a regular candle, please keep in mind that you'll want to keep your flowers well below the level of the flame.  We don't want any of that fabulousness to MELT!  And we certainly don't want you to smoke out your honey bunny in the night!

Here's a snap of the finished project on my craft table.  I love it!  I made a second one and it became a 40th Bday/thank-you gift to our cousin for giving us fabulous haircuts.  Yay us, yay Amber!

Here's the purple "Hurricane Amber"!

And here is our darling hurricane in its new home on our dining table.

What do you think?  This is totally something you could knock out in an hour or less -- and that includes planning and list-making!  I love mine and can't wait to see yours!  Feel free to share in the comments, below.