DIY Decor: Carnivorous Plant Pot

Earlier this year, we attended a musical at my old high school. They were performing Little Shop of Horrors, and we had such a fun evening! Their Audrey II very much inspired today’s blogtober project, along with a photo I found on Pinterest! Here on the blog, I love sharing simple quick projects but sometimes it’s nice to get stuck into a project that takes a bit longer! The results are better than I even imagined! I say this a lot, but I think this may be my favorite project I made this year, along with the sandworm picks I shared earlier this month! Check out how I made this carnivorous plant pot below!

Supplies:

Plant Pot (You can use one you have at home, but I purchased mine from Amazon)
Floral foam (I got mine at Michael’s here)
Styrofoam balls in 2 sizes (Mine are from Michael’s, the 1.3″ and 1.8″ here)
Toothpicks
Stem wire (Here)
Faux greenery picks (mine are from The Dollar Tree, and they matched my color palette perfectly!)
Moss (Mine is the Spanish moss from Michael’s here)
A small rectangular piece of cardboard
Butcher paper (Optional)
Clear Sealer
Red, Green, Brown acrylic paint in your desired shades
White and black acrylic paint
Paintbrushes and a sponge
Hot glue gun and glue
A small serrated knife (I used one of our pumpkin carving knives)
Scissors

Method:

This step is completely optional. I didn’t like the harsh white color that this plant urn comes in, so I decided to paint it. I used various shades of brown acrylic paint and black and applied them with a paintbrush and sponge to cover the entire piece. I started just trying to make it look dirty and worn, but I think it looks more like granite, which I loved! Allow to dry completely.
Once dry, apply a clear coat to the plant urn. Allow to dry completely.
Using your serrated knife, cut small wedges from the styrofoam balls. I used 4 of my larger-sized balls and 5 of the smaller ones. They’ll look like little Pac-Mans 🙂
Next, paint the styrofoam balls. I poked some toothpicks into the bottom of each ball so that I could hold that while I painted. For the green, I started with just one shade and they looked a little flat so I used a shade of brown and black mixed with the same green acrylic paint to make different shades and just dabbed that all over the outside of each ball.
- For the inside of the mouth, I used two different shades of red to give more dimension as well!
- Use your floral foam blocks to stick the toothpick in so the balls can dry. I left mine overnight to dry completely.
Once your little Audrey II’s are dry, paint some toothpicks white and allow to dry. Then, using scissors, score the toothpick a little below the tips and break off the pointy ends to make the teeth for the little styrofoam balls. Carefully stick the little teeth into the mouth of each ball making sure the pointy end is the one that shows. I did 4 teeth on the top and 5 on the bottom, staggering them.
Now it’s time to make the stems. Using the stem wire, create fun, curly shapes keeping both ends relatively straight. Remove the toothpicks that you used when painting the balls and add some hot glue into the same hole and stick the stem wire into your styrofoam balls.
To prepare the urn, crinckle up some butcher paper and fill the bottom of the urn or pot. We are creating a base for the stem wire and greenery picks to be stuck into. I used hot glue to keep mine in place. Hot glue your floral foam into place on the paper below the lip of the urn or pot.
Fill in the holes around the floral foam with more butcher paper, this helps secure it all and add a stable place for the stems to be stuck into.
Cover the floral foam and paper with your moss. I used a bit of hot glue to keep the clumps more secure in the plant urn.
Remove the leaf sections from the faux floral stem, creating individual picks. Stick them into the base you created in whatever way looks best to you! Make sure they are getting inserted into the floral foam so they are secure.
Stick the styrofoam stems into the base. I used wire cutters to make some of their stems shorter so they looked a bit staggered. Adjust to your desired look.
Lastly, you can create a small sign for your pot. Cut out a small piece of cardboard and cover with some butcher paper, using hot glue to secure on the back. Write a message, mine says “BEWARE! This plant will bite!”
To make the sign into it’s own little pick, I used some of the leftover stem pieces from the faux greenery picks and glued them to the back of the sign so it has two little legs. Stick the legs into the base you created!