First off - any time your going to do a project - I suggest you read ALL of the tutorial.. not just skim thru the pictures and decide you've figured it out! I also suggest you read all of the labels of all the materials you are going to be working with especially if it's something you've never used before!!
See I decided we were going to do a wishing tree instead of the usual guest book. First tutorial involved filling a pot with plaster of Paris. Well I had already had a barn wood planter made, which is not water tight. and I worried about the plaster leaking as it was drying. So then I saw another tutorial using spray foam. I already had a can here at the house and decided that I could totally just do that! So I got all my materials together and started making it up as I went along. Well, I quickly learned that you're only supposed to fill your container 1/3 of the way full. I came back to check on it and it was over flowing onto our hard wood floors. In a moment of panic I quickly started wiping it up with my hands and trying to get it off the floor and off the side of planter. With my hands covered in foam I quickly ran to the kitchen sick to wash it off. The moment I put water on this stuff it turned into a sticky tar that covered my entire hands. No matter how much I scrubbed my hands it just spread and remained super sticky. I then quickly got the can and read the label.. and there it clearly stated 'do not get in contact with skin. If contact occurs do not rinse with water. Use Acetone to remove from skin'. Crap. Acetone.. Nail polish remover!! I have some of that! ... WRONG. Hands covered in sticky tar I went searching thru our bathroom cupboards with no success. What kind of girl was I with no nail polish remover? That day I learned that my 3 year old son was pretty good at working my smart phone. I had to have him help me call daddy and put it on speaker phone. Of course Matt got a great laugh out of the whole thing, but when I told him that the foam was also on my engagement ring he was a little less than trilled. I still had 2 hours until he was out of work and could get me the nail polish remover. In about 15 minutes the foam had already started to harden. Which was good in a way - no more tar hands. But really it just meant that the crap was cemented to my hands. Even when Matt got home with the nail polish remover it did nothing. I literally soaked my hands in it and it took off maybe 50%. It has been almost a week now since it all and I finally have 90% of it off.
But yes - Here is my tutorial, of sorts...
First off here were my supplies:
- Hot Glue Gun + Glue Sticks
- Tree Branch (got mine here)
- Planter (or ceramic pot)
- Spray Foam
- Moss (Got mine here) (or some other decorative material)
First off I hot glued my tree branch in the box. Mine had a curve to it a bit so I glued it in the corner of the planter so I wouldn't have to hold it while the foam was drying.
Next for the spray foam. Here is where I made my critical mistake. As you can see I filled my container to the fill point I wanted - not realizing the stuff was going to EXPAND! And it does! About double, if not triple, the amount you started with. SO ONLY FILL YOUR CONTAINER 1/3 OF THE WAY! Trust me! And if you get the stuff on your hands DO NOT ADD WATER!!!
Well- I don't have any in between pictures. Everything got pretty chaotic at that point.. But about 4 hours after the foam dried I got glued the moss on to cover the foam. My foam over expanded down the side of my planter and I wasn't able to get it off - so I improvised a bit and made some moss 'creep' out of the planter and up the tree a bit.
Sorry this is upside down - But I used my cricut machine to cut out tags. You could just buy shipping tags. Again I have another custom made tag from Etsy. If you wanted to save a lot of time they also have premade printed tags on Etsy! All depends on the amount of time you want to spend!
And here's my finished project! Even with all the chaos I'm pretty happy with it!
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