For the people that aren't green thumbed, this diy is for you.
I'm getting pretty good at keeping my plants alive,
but for some reason, I just can't keep cactus or succulents alive. Either they're over watered,
or they're underwatered and I can just never keep them happy. Hi my name is Letitia,
I do diy home and fashion, so if you want to see more diy content, be sure to like
and subscribe to this video. This video is in partnership with Cricut again!
If you missed it, you should see my previous Cricut video where I do diy wall art. That was
my first time ever using a Cricut, so this is level upping on my Cricut game as a Cricuter.
Cricut has proven to be just super versatile in allowing me to craft in new ways that I've never
tried before. It cuts over 300 materials! So what I'm dabbling in today is just the
tip of the iceberg, and today we're going to be doing diy faux plants,
as well as planters. So for the people that aren't green thumbed, this diy is for you.
I actually have my own pilea plant here. This little guy. Using the shapes tool, I inserted
a few varieties of circles into Cricut design space with the biggest being about three inches,
then two and a half, and then two ish. I keep learning new things,
but design space will automatically arrange your shapes to minimize off cuts and fit as much into
the smallest area possible onto your mat. You know what I also learned, now that I am a Cricut head?
They just think of everything.
I ended up printing 17 circles on my mat using this collection of green card stock.
I'll link all my materials used in the description. My machine is the Cricut maker
and all of the diys in this video are simple, one layered designs that even beginner Cricut
users like me can attempt. After weeding, cut through all your circles to the center,
then overlap the edges slightly to make a little cup and then tape it up. I used washi tape because
it's the only green tape that I have but I don't think that glue will hold it as well as tape will.
I have wire here that I wrapped with floral tape, which proved to be very tricky and then I bent it
at the end like so then I use glue gun to stick my leaves to the stem, and figured out later that
it's easier to apply the glue to the base of the stem instead of all over the leaf. I have this,
and I have a green foam. Some moss. See if we can put these together. So you see that the
pilea grows one big trunk. This is like the mama I have. I've given away so many babies to friends,
I actually like the look of the babies more because this big barky trunk which has dropped a
lot of leaves, it can grow. It grows vertically and it just keeps growing and growing and the
leaves just keep growing it kind of grows like um brussels sprouts.
You are my muse mama. I would sort of decide where the front is gonna face.
It's nice not so nice. My mom and I have always wanted to take floral arrangement classes.
She's more of a flower lady I'm more of a plant lady. If you see this one it also turns
because it faces wherever the sun goes. Very nice. Use some craft moss to cover up the foam
block and it gives the faux plant an extra natural boost. Apparently this is also called the chinese
money plant which is something I learned. I loved how leggy this pilea is compared to my
more like tree trunky pilea, and now I won't have to worry about my leaves dropping.
I decided to dedicate a planter to my favorite decor item in the house, which is my rug. Can you
get too much checker print things? I'd say no, many would say yes. I traded for this concrete
planter, which has a great shape but the strange greenish gold legs were not cutting it for me, so
I spray painted them black. For the checker print, I'm using powder blue permanent vinyl. I imported
a wavy checkered print according to the dimensions of my planter, which was eight inches tall.
A good tip when cutting your vinyl is to leave a bit of seam allowance. The cricut won't cut to
the edge and there will be a half inch border all around to ensure it fits the whole image.
You can easily weed the negative space by starting at the border. The cricut leaves
and you can even repeat this checkered pattern on something else with your excess bits.
So I have my two pieces I put transfer tape on. I'm gonna try and do this as seamless as possible.
The key to rolling on a pattern is to take your time, and if you're matching end pieces,
I actually cut and pasted sections in order to fit where it needed to go. I think it helps that
this is not a perfect checker print, so that some waviness is forgivable. I didn't match the
end to the beginning so I disconnected a couple of squares and patched it to fit it in a bit better.
That'll be hidden as the back of the planter. I was worried that the powder blue wasn't going to
stand out against the concrete but also I didn't want to cover up the texture that it creates
so I'm glad that this worked out so well. I think it would look even cooler
if the legs were spray painted like an electric cobalt blue or a bright orange.
The fishbone cactus is so wacky that it almost doesn't look real. It's like someone took a
squiggly pen and just went wild. I'm going to start by importing a variety of fishbone tendril
shapes into cricut design space. I'm using the same card stock from the green cardstock
collection but varying two different light greens. I'm gonna cut a bunch of versions
of these and then while they're getting cut I'm gonna keep weeding. See how they're turning out.
I added little spikes to the end so that it'll hopefully stick into the styrofoam a bit better.
You see they're curling on their own. Usually, if you don't want things to curl you peel the mat
like this, but because I want them curled
I don't mind. Oh even with the scraps I can make extras just with scissors. These are perfect.
With the excess, I ended up with a giant pile of fronds, so I'd say you only need
two to three sheets for this. As Rupaul would say, we're padding to the gods.
Then make sure you grab a good mix of color. I think that's why I tossed my salad here. It helps
with the foam block. I'll make some cuts so I can easily insert the leaves through.
When you're slicing the foam, make sure you vary the direction of the cut to make it look
as natural as possible. I was going to fill in the sides with gravel but it was so lush
that I don't even need it. I've never even seen this cactus available to buy and all my cactuses
take a long time to grow so it's nice that I have a full-grown plant that I made within a day.
I love the dollar store clay pot. It's such a great basic pot and the color
and material leaves so much potential because of the rough unfinished surface.
It's perfect to stencil and paint. This melty smiley face pattern is so popular online,
very y2k. I just couldn't find the original artist online. I imported the print into design space and
cut it on stencil vinyl something that proved to be very useful, especially with the grid lines. I
matched the pot to an area I liked on the pattern and cut to the height of the pot. Then using
transfer paper, I picked up the stencil vinyl and applied it to the pot. It's important to burnish
as well as possible because if you leave air bubbles it'll leak through when you spray paint.
This is where stencil vinyl is so great because you can peel and re-stick to reposition. On the
lip of the pot I'll position, cut then overlap the stencil bits taping them down as added measure.
I was hoping to do the same for the tray but it proved to be too difficult. The stencil vinyl is
a bit thick and it needs to be that way to prevent bleeding, so I just added a white trim instead.
Turn the pot in the dish upside down before spraying so you keep the lip and the inside clean.
To minimize any bleeds, spray directly facing the pot and work around it in sweeps,
avoiding spraying from an angle. The stencil really helps with making sure that the lines stay
crispy. Like the wavy checkered, it helps that it's already a distorted print so that if you
have little mistakes it's a little more forgiving. I hope this turned out okay.
I love it. This planter really invites you to take a closer look. The melty smiles look like they're
sliding off. People are biologically drawn to find faces in things, so once you do a double
take you realize this is a bunch of happy faces. This has been such a step up in my crafting game
and if you want to see more diy videos you can check the link in the description.
I'm starting to realize that some of my best diys are made with this mighty machine. Let me
know in the comments which of these diys are your favorite, and if you recreate any of them you can
tag me on insta @letitiakiu, I'd love to share them, and I will see you in my next diy, bye!