No trowel required

I've been waiting to find/afford three largish plant pots for a parlour palm, an areca and a mother-in-laws tongue.  I intended to make some temporary plants to go in them to tide me over until I see some nice ones I can afford. I have seen plenty of really lovely ones but twenty pounds upwards is a bit daunting.

Having made the little pot I decided larger versions of that would do until something else came along. This one was made with the left over border paper from the salon, cut into three strips to get the right width and the pot was made the same way as the one in the kitchen only slightly bigger.  This one is an inch across the top.  

I made the areca palm with some green almost plasticy,  stripy fabric I bought for 25p somewhere.  I thought it might make plants.  They are fairly obviously constructed.  I worked out their size, cut out some oval shaped leaves and stuck a piece of green florists wire down the back of them.  Luckily this was before bedtime so they had tons of chance to dry before I got to them again.  I am dreadful at not letting paint or glue dry properly.  I then hacked all along the leaves, roughed the edges up with my fingers, bent them a little and sat down to figure out how to make dirt.  I wonder if God had this problem.

My solution was just brilliant.  Some white florists sand which seems to come in handy for all kinds of things.  I just used it to fill the handbags I made to give them some stability, for example.  Any way in that went into the mixing pot along with black acrylic paint and brown acrylic paint and some glue.  Again, I can't give you any quantities, it was just a case of getting the colour I wanted and mixing it all with a toothpick until there was enough glue and sand in it to make it all come up looking like dirt.  The white bits you can see here do get mixed in properly.

Handy tip, you only need a tiny bit of all of them to do the job, you are not making an allotment.  Into the plant pot it went, in went the palm leaves and the following day it had all set rock hard and stands up well under its own weight with no tacky wax needed.

This is the equivalent of a three foot tall plant.  It is to go on the floor in the shop near the gentlemen's seats.  I need a couple of comfy seats, a small table, some newspapers and a hall stand for their hats, gloves, walking canes and brollies.