DIY Planter from a Repurposed Trash Bin

DIY Planter

Can you believe that this super cute DIY planter used to be a humble waste basket?

Hit the thrift store for a wire waste basket, pick yourself up some eco-friendly yarn, and you are ready to make a cute planter for your favorite house plant! This is kind of a time-consuming project. Tranae at Becoming Fabulous says it took her about 10 hours over three days to complete it, but this DIY planter is what I like to call a "couch craft." Put on some bad TV or a favorite movie, kick back, and weave.

I love how Tranae used a mix of bold colors for her bin, and you could really play a lot with your colors to get different effects. She's got a lot of contrast, but I think you could get a cool ombre effect by using a few yarns that are different shades of the same color. You could also have fun with art yarn or even play around with mixing in some plarn or newspaper yarn to add extra texture.

This DIY planter tutorial uses a waste basket from a big box store, but you can make this a green craft by hitting the thrift store for your waste basket instead. It might take a little bit longer to find, but you'll save money on materials and you'll be upcycling, so it's totally worth the extra leg work!

craftRECYCLED logo

All that you need to make your own DIY planter are:

  • a reclaimed trash bin
  • plenty of yarn
  • tape
  • scissors
  • a plant in a pot that's slightly narrower and slightly shorter than your basket

Got your materials together? Head over to Becoming Fabulous for the complete DIY planter tutorial!

Green Decor: Flexible Cork Bowls from Bambu Home

green decor cork bowl

Who says you can't stay organized and have cute, green decor options at the same time? Not this gal!

Ever since having my baby back in March, I've been all about decluttering and organizing our house. My husband has made countless trips to Goodwill as we get rid of our tchotchkes, and I've been working on decorating with and organizing what's left. It's made our house feel a lot bigger and makes it so much easier to keep things tidy!

One method that's helped me a lot is using baskets and decorative boxes in bookshelves as hidden or semi-hidden storage. When the folks at Bambu Home offered to send me one of their new cork bowls to review, it gave me some green decor ideas!

Green Decor: Cork

Cork is a great material for designing all manner of green decor options. Much like bamboo, cork grows quickly and doesn't require a lot of water or pesticides to grow. That makes it much more sustainable than wood or paper, and of course it's leaps and bounds better than plastic. Cork forests also help preserve biodiversity, which in this age of monocropping is more important than ever!

These bowls aren't meant to be used as storage, but when I unwrapped my sample bowl a couple of weeks ago, I knew it would be wasted in my kitchen. It looks handy for serving, but we have serving dishes up the wazoo already. What we didn't have was something to wrangle my son's toys in the living room, and this bowl was the absolutely perfect size!

cork bowl

See how nice it looks loaded with persimmons? That is a product shot from the company, showing one of the ways you can use these bowls in the kitchen. The bowls are water- and stain-resistant, and you can wash them with the rest of your laundry. As you can see, since they're flexible you can fold the sides down to make them as shallow or deep as you need.

Because the bowl is flexible, it's also great for home decor and storage! We have one of those Ikea bookcases that's made of cubes in the living room, and the bowl fits easily into one of the cubes with room left over to stash a few books. The lighting in my living room is not super ideal, so I mocked up this storage situation to give you an idea of how I've been using my cork bowl.

green decor cork bowl with toys

Since the bowl is machine-washable, I can toss it in the wash along with the blanket and toys that I'm storing in there, which is great! My son has just reached a serious drooling phase, so all of his stuff gets gross pretty quickly. I also could probably fit one more book on that shelf, because the flexible bowl conforms somewhat to the area where you fit it.

You can find these cork bowls and Bambu Home's full line of products on their website. I poked around a little bit while I was working on this review and stumbled upon these super rad, colorful cutting boards that may just have to become part of my kitchen!