Cactus Pot by Lesley

Hey everyone. Lesley here with altered ATB for you.

I don't have any plants in my house........i tend to kill them all! But i did treat myself to a few cacti thinking even i can't kill them off......time will tell though. They came in these really horrid plastic pots and i had trouble finding small ceramic pots for them to sit in. So.......i thought i'd have a bash at making my own.

The ATB are so versatile. I used the medium size one with a square aperture. I started by gluing it together and priming it with gesso.

I applied texture paste through a leaf stencil to the sides of the cube, not bothering with the base. Once this was dry, i use a two step moss effect paint over the top. It still looked a bit bland, so i applied a rust coloured paint with my fingers over the top, concentrating on the raised areas of the leaves.

I randomly stamped using a crackle pattern stamp around the edges.

And then i painted a diluted wash of Paynes Grey paint over all 4 sides.

The bottom was painted with the rust paint, stamped and then the wash over the top. I drilled a hole in the bottom for drainage. Although, thats not need in my house as i never remember to water plants!

I won't lie........planting the cactus in the cube was a pain in the butt!. Its not quite in the centre, but i gave up after my finger started to bleed!

I added little feet to the pot which were painted black and some rusty wire was added around them.

To finish, i gave it a couple of coats of matt varnish (to protect it from all the water it will never see!!)

Now, i just have another 6 cacti to plant......any advice gratefully received!

Thanks for reading.
L.xx

You can find the square aperture ATB here.