Easy Up-cycled Plant Pot Tutorial

Plastic plant pots, what could be more ugly?  And yet they are very useful and not to mention cheap, in face I acquired most of my plant post for nothing, so rather than fork out for expensive decorative pots, why not up-cycle your own?  Here is a really easy tutorial to improve the appearance of a very uninspiring pot:


1. You need: A plastic plant pot, some thick twine (mine is made from hemp), scissors, a glue gun.

 2. Begin by putting a line of glue along the base of the pot and place the end of the string along the line of glue, add more glue and line the string up along it, careful not to burn your fingers on the glue.  Don't cut the string yet because you won't know how much you will need.

 3. Continue all the way round the put then begin another layer on top of the first.

4. Keep glueing and wrapping the string round the pot, try to push the string up as close as possibly to the row below so that none of the pot shows through.

 5. Keep going...

6. And keep going till you get to the top of the pot.  To finish off put a line of glue around the very top edge of the pot then cover with the string so that the top edge of the pot is covered.  Finish off by cutting the string and gluing the end slightly inside the pot so you don't have an exposed end.

 7. Admire your handiwork!

Up-cycled Lampshade Tutorial

Over the Easter holidays I did a few little DIY projects around the house, just things I have been meaning to do for some time and not yet got round to. This is one of the.  We has these two lampshades, one in the hall and one on the landing.  I didn't like them much and wanted to change them but we couldn't work out how to get them down from the ceiling! Sounds stupid but they were wired it and it seemed like an awful lot of hassle to change them and even to take them down to repaint them.  So I decided to re-spray them whilst still attached to the ceiling. I figured that even though they weren't my favourite lampshades at least in white they would have a bird cage feel to them rather than looking like some Victorian oil lamp wannabe.  
So here is how I did it:

Take out the glass and give it a good clean if it as dusty as mine (blushes).

 Take a black plastic bin bag and cut along one of the long sides, tape it with masking tape around the light with some newspaper at the top to protect the ceiling.

Spray back and forth with the spray paint to avoid drips, build up the layers gradually. Move the plastic around toe do he whole of the lamp. 

Much better I think.