California Crafting

I'm in Los Angeles for the summer working at a museum (and hopefully Barnes&Noble too, because the whole unpaid internship thing is for the birds . . .) and visiting people, including my boyfriend. On Wednesday I'll have been here for three weeks. The time flies and way too quickly too!

I could write about what's going on at the museum or cool stuff that I've been doing or some of the amazing food I've been consuming (because let's be honest, food is what life is all about, right?), but instead I'm writing about crafting. Go figure.

A few nights ago I was at my boyfriend's apartment watching a movie (or was it season four of Arrested Development? the quality of which is in serious question...I can't remember,  regardless, it doesn't matter) when his dad came in suddenly with three flower pots with various species of cactus in them. "You should take these," he said. "You won't have to water them," he said. "And the story of how I happened upon them is remarkable!" he said. We have yet to hear this amazing, remarkable tale of how these cacti were acquired.

Well, the boyfriend wasn't (and still isn't) the biggest fan of the plants. He said that he didn't need them, had nowhere to put them, and that the flower pots were ugly. The flower pots weren't ugly. Well, one of them was because it was zebra patterned, but the other two were normal. Observe:

I pretend to be crafty. I like to do crafts. But to be honest, most of the time the endeavors I pursue turn out catastrophic. For example: a few months ago I decided to try and make a snow globe as a gift for someone. The snow globe itself turned out decently--until a friend shook it one too many times and what was inside starting floating. Trying to fix the snow globe didn't go too well--I ended up getting epoxy cement and rubbing alcohol in my eye and spending the rest of the night with my head in a bowl of water, effectively "irrigating" my eyes so as not to end up with permanent damage. Or with an epoxy cement rock in my eye either.

So, while I may not be the best at crafting, I really enjoying it. And it comes from the heart, and that's what matters, right? Anyway, I decided to take the ugly pots and make them my own. But what can one do with semi-ugly flower pots?

Why, decoupauge of course!

I decided to use LA themed postcards (which I found at the Farmer's Market on Third & Fairfax for fifty cents a piece!) for the ugly zebra print flower pot and paper napkins for the other two pots. One set of napkins had different sort of old fashioned hipster looking bikes and the other set had zen looking elephants. Both sets can be purchased through World Market.

Notice the bicycle tire in the background. Well played, eh?

Next I set out to find Mod Podge. Which, apparently is only an East Coast thing because no one that I came into contact with had ever even heard of the stuff, which I thought was a staple among crafters. So instead, I made my own by mixing two parts glue and one part water. It worked decently, I think. Next, I just cut out the postcards and sort of collaged them onto the awkwardly shaped flowerpot and then did the same for the other two normal shaped flower pots as well with Elmer's All Glue. And I learned that when decoupaging, kindergarten rules come back into play: one dot IS indeed a lot. The next step was to then apply the Mod Podge to the flower pots. I did this using a sponge and tried to just apply a fine layer so that it wouldn't get all gooky or look bad. I think that I used too much glue when first gluing the paper to the flower pots and it kind of showed through, so next time I'll be using less glue. Also, be careful because the napkins rip very easily, which is frustrating. I applied three coats of Mod Podge to each pot. letting it dry for about twenty minutes in between each coat.

 And this is what I ended up with. Three flower pots full of character! :)

And the best part? I did this craft for under $25! The napkins were around $9.00 together, twelve postcards were $6.00, homemade Mod Podge was $2.50 (only because I had to buy the glue), and the sponges I used to apply the Mod Podge were $4.50.

My advice for anyone pursing their flower pot decoupaging dreams              would be to make sure to decoupauge flower pots that don't have plants already potted in them. I broke a few petals that way . . .

And of course, the pots (and my hard work, I might add!) are still hidden in the kitchen and not on display in the apartment. . .grumble, grumble. . .