- Hey, what's up, you guys?
it's Simon Hurley, and I'm here to share
some really awesome DIY upcycled planters
using empty coffee and soup cans from around your house,
inspired by "The Last Kids on Earth" on Netflix.
(upbeat music)
All right, so let's get into the supplies.
For this project you're of course
going to need recycled cans.
You can use larger ones, or you could use smaller cans.
You're going to need a nail and hammer
to make the drainage holes.
And make sure you get a parent's permission for that
so you stay safe.
You'll also need paint in assorted colors,
as well as detail paint brushes.
And also I'm using larger foam brushes as well
to cover surfaces really quickly.
I also have twine nearby to finish off some details.
Painter's tape is going to be super helpful
to mask off certain areas.
Adhesive tape is going to be helpful,
but you can also use a liquid glue.
Cardstock in assorted colors to wrap around the pots,
a rubber stamp, and some permanent ink.
But you can also use stencils to add texture.
That's it for the supplies.
So let's get into our project.
For this project you can use any sort of cans,
larger cans or smaller ones from inside your pantry.
For me, all it took was just peeling off of the label here.
You're left with a really great can to use for your project.
In the area where the label's kind of adhered on
I just went in with dish soap
to wipe that off and get rid of any excess stickiness.
And I've got a couple of small ones and larger ones
to work with for the plants that I have today.
Now we need to put a few holes in our planter at the bottom
for drainage holes so that we don't kill our plant,
and if any excess water is in there it can easily drain out.
All I'm going to do is take a hammer and a nail.
And if you're doing this,
make sure you have a parent's permission
and that you're being super safe about it.
I'm going to start off right in the center here
and then really carefully just tap the top of the nail
until it goes through.
And you'll have a little hole there.
And I'll do that, you know,
three or four times on the bottom.
It's pretty easy to do.
And this will allow any excess water to drain out.
And I'm going to repeat this same process
in all the cans that we're creating today.
I'm going to start off with one
of the smaller cans for my first design.
And we're going to do something really simple with it.
I'm just gonna grab a little bit of painter's tape
and line it up with some of these lines on the can.
Just following that line as close as possible
and smoothing it out as I go until it meets the other side
and it's all nice and masked off.
I'm going to grab another piece of tape
and repeat this exact same process on the bottom side here,
lining my tape up and masking off along that line,
making sure that my tape stays nice and straight
until I meet along on the other side.
If you have bumps like this,
just kind of smooth them out so that nothing seeps under.
Then I'm going to grab a little bit of acrylic paint.
I'm using a kind of olive green tone.
And this is going to be great.
I want kind of some earthy tones for today's project.
And I have these foam brushes
that have this really nice large surface.
These are going to make it super easy
to paint on my can nice and quickly.
And I'm easily able to kind of get into all of the grooves
and not have any brushstroke textures or anything like that.
Depending on what kind of paint you're using as well,
you might be able to see a little bit of the can.
And we can always go in with a second
or a third coat of paint to make sure
that it's all nice and covered up.
Once we've met at the other side there
we can just set this off to the side and wait for it to dry.
Once this is all dry, again,
you can kind of see a little bit of the can still.
So I'm going to go in with another layer
of that same olive paint
and just make you get a little bit more opaque.
Building the paint up in layers like this
is a lot easier than just going in with one solid coat.
So it's really going to just build up the thickness
and you won't be able to see the can as much.
I really like that nice thick layer
of color that we got there.
And this is the big reveal.
Peel this off.
And that just provides a really nice clean line.
And do the same thing on the bottom side
to reveal that awesome stripe of color in the center.
Of course, you could add other colors up here too
that go along with your center color.
But I wanted to keep that tin aluminum
because I thought it looked really cool
and kind of added to the upcycled effect.
Now to finish this off, I'm going to go in with twine
to give a little bit of decoration to it.
Just start wrapping it around the center.
You can kind of overlap it.
I just want a couple layers of this twine wrapped up here.
Once I've done that I've got these two ends
and I'm just going to tie them
to create a really nice and simple bow.
I really like that kind of extra detail in the center there.
It really gives off a bold and graphic look to your planter.
For this next planter I've got a piece of cardstock.
And you want something that's like 12 inches.
You just want to make sure that it fits
all the way around your planter and covers it all.
We're going to cut it
kind of like you would a DIY snowflake.
So what I'm going to do is fold it in half.
Then I'm going to fold it in half once again.
And then we'll just do this one more time.
Once this is all folded, I just want it
to be the exact same size as my planter,
make little marks on the bottom edge here.
And then I'll just cut that down.
Perfect.
I'm going to go in on the folded edge
and draw kind of whatever design I want.
Some triangles.
And then let's go into like kind of a circular design here.
Nothing has to be perfect.
Just kind of have fun with it.
You know, when you're a kid and you kind of just draw
and create those really awesome snowflakes.
That's similar to what we're doing today,
where we can just kind of create our own designs.
I'll make sure that I'm holding my cardstock all together.
I can go in with my scissors
and cut right along whatever mark that I created.
Of course, you could freehand this.
But I find that it helps me
when you're going through such thick layers of cardstock
to just have kind of a guide
as you're going in to cut it out.
If there's any excess kind of lines that are still on there,
you can always just go in and erase those
to make it nice and clean.
We can open up our cardstock
to reveal the design that we've created.
This is super cool.
So whatever you've cut out,
it'll kind of repeat it along the whole thing
and create this really fun geometric design.
All right, so cut our other lighter sheet of cardstock
down to the exact same size.
And this is where a little bit of adhesive
is going to come in handy.
So like I said, for this you could use liquid glue.
I'm just going to use a little bit of double-sided tape.
And I happen to like this one
because it's really nice and strong
and I know it's going to hold up.
I'll just flatten this out and add my tape,
apply a little bit of adhesive to the center here
to make sure that everything is held down.
Then I'm going to peel off the adhesive backer sheets.
And I like to start with just one corner, place it down.
Everything should stay lined up as we go across our sheet.
So this just makes the whole process super easy.
There we go.
Once this is done, I'll just follow the same steps.
Grab my adhesive tape, apply a couple different strips
on the backside so that we can adhere it down to our can.
I just find the line where the can meets,
line it up with that and kind of press down a little bit
and then follow it all the way along with the can
and everything should line up.
And press down to adhere everything together.
So there is this really easy planter
using that cardstock to create
some different geometric designs.
And of course, if you just wanted to use that top layer,
and again stencil it through with paint
to make it a little bit more permanent,
you totally could do that as well.
Now for our last and larger can
we're going to go in and kind of replicate
the tree house from "The Last Kids on Earth."
So this is going to be a really fun one.
I'm going to start off with acrylic paint.
This is kind of a lighter tan color.
I'm just going to apply a little bit
to a piece of cardstock.
I'll again grab one of the large sponge brushes.
That's really going to help me apply this paint
all along the surface.
And of course we're going to do
several different layers of it
to make sure it's nice and covered.
It just really helps to do things in thin layers,
and you can really make the color nice and vibrant.
To add a little bit more depth to this,
I'm going to go in with a second color and a dry brush.
This one's got a lot of different bristles.
And it's more of a stiff bristle brush,
which is something that I wanted for this project.
I just want to apply a little bit of paint.
We're just adding some shadows and depth and dimension.
A little bit goes a long way.
And then kind of dry brush and it'll give
this really cool kind of shading effect.
And that's totally how we want it to look
because it's a nice wooden tree house.
So we're just giving it a little bit of texture
all around the pot.
Now you can totally leave it here
but I want to add a little bit more texture.
So last but not least, we're going in
with a ink pad and rubber stamp.
I thought this wood grain rubber stamp
was absolutely perfect.
And I'll just kind of swipe it all over.
You can also tap it to get a little bit more ink.
But I want kind of a lighter coverage.
I'm just going to use kind of sections of the stamp.
Tilt the stamp a little bit, press down.
And again, there's grooves in this,
so you're not going to get like a perfect impression,
but it just adds this really
kind of cool wood grain texture.
And I'm going to do it randomly all over
to get this awesome wood grain look.
You can kind of smudge it out
or use excess paint to kind of blend some of those edges in.
If you want more of that wood grain, you can add it in,
but just continue doing this all the way around.
I want to do it up here, wrap it around a little bit.
Once that stamping is complete
you have this really awesome and fun wood grain texture
all the way around your planter.
And I love how it looks like the tree house.
Now we need to get our plants in here
so we can totally make this come to life.
This next part is going to get a little bit messy.
So make sure you're on a protected work surface
or somewhere that you can get dirty.
And get a parent's permission if you need help
kind of replanting these.
I'm going to grab soil for my plant
and put it in the bottom of my tree house planter.
Then we can go in with our actual plant.
We'll make sure all of the roots and stuff
are all inside of our planter.
Fill in the rest of with our extra soil.
Moving the leaves a little bit
and just kind of patting in place there
to make sure there's enough soil.
For these littler planters,
I'm following the exact same steps
where I just grab the excess dirt
and make sure that all goes inside.
And then we can go in with our actual plant
and just kind of fill it
so everything is nice and sturdy.
Now if you're ever stuck in an apocalypse
as the last kid on earth
you have a handy way to upcycle a planter,
and then you could even grow your own food.
I just love how we were able to really upcycle these cans
from soup or coffee that you can find in your pantry
and create really fun and beautiful planters out of them.
I love this one too, inspired by the tree house
from "The Last Kids on Earth."
It is such a fun pattern and texture that we created.
All right, guys, that completes these fun planters
inspired by "The Last Kids on Earth,"
now streaming on Netflix.
I hope you give these really awesome
upcycling ideas a try at home.
Bye.