Feeling Tipsy

Today I will be joining a brand new blog party at Olga's Home and Garden Blog called Handmade Monday.

Olga's blog is a fun blog filled with pictures of her garden, in a nice sunny California climate, and occasional glimpses into her life. I enjoy my visits there because her garden always makes me smile. Check out her part and see what people are making by hand:

I will also be joining Linda at Coastal Charm, for Nifty Thrifty Tuesday.

My project was made by hand, and at a nifty thrifty price!

I have seen several blogs showing the tipsy pots, all stacked up and leaning over. I'm sure you know the ones I mean:


I never paid much attention, they were just one more thing that would have to wait until we had lots of room and money.

Well, Diann asked me if I could make one. I looked at the pics and thought.... Sure, I guess I can do that!

The next step was to do it on a budget. I couldn't go out and buy a whole bunch of terra cotta pots or anything.

Fortunately, it was still early in the season, so a good trip around our neighborhood on the night before garbage day yielded me a truckload of planters and pots. I'll show off some more later, once they fill in a bit.

But in my truckload of stuff, I got five plastic pots, all about the same size.

Would this work? The one tutorial I saw, specifically said to use a big pot on the bottom, and then smaller pots all the way up. But pics I saw showed some done each way. Most of them I saw were made out of clay pots though. Would plastic work?

I decided to find out.

A can of spray paint at Walmart, (2.99 later and all my pots and planters were the same color.

I raided my father in laws garage for a scrap piece of conduit, and got out the hammer. I started with a piece just under 7' long and pounded about 3 feet of it into the ground. We have strong winds here, but this thing isn't going anywhere now.

I had to cut a hole in the bottom of each pot. Plastic pots have drainage holes around the sides, but not usually in the center. Then I stacked them up and stood back.


Wow.

It really is that easy!

I bought a 99 cent bag of topsoil to add to our own composted soil (Bingo calls it "special dirt").

Then Bingo and I went to look for plants.

Lowes had a clearance sale, all the plants on one rack were 25 cents.
I spent less than $3.00 and had enough for this one and a couple of other projects.


So, my total cost for this project was:

Pots - Free
Conduit - free
Paint $2.99
Soil - .99
Plants 1.75

Total $5.73

That's a budget I can live with.
(This weekend, i got a bargain deal on a whole bunch of flowers, so I will be filling it in even more real soon, and will be revealing the great deal I got.)


The best part about this was I did it all with a two year old girl helping me. She handed me things, scooped dirt for me, helped me choose plants, and she takes partial ownership of the tipsy pots, since she helped make them, so she is very concerned about making sure they get enough water.


Any project that can be done with her help, rather than just having her in the way, is automatically a fun project.

Please take a minute and check out Olga's and Linda's blogs, for more fun handmade and nifty thrifty posts.

Be sure and join me each Tuesday for Tuesday Trivia Tie-in, where readers are invited to share trivia and show off their treasures. Read all about it here