I absolutely love the challenge of upcycling old objects into something new.
Instead of tossing this empty Dunkin Donuts coffee container into the recycle bin, I upcycled it into a flower pot for my snake plant.
Snake plants have tall, spiky leaves that look like snakes. They are low-maintenance houseplants that are easy to care for and hard to kill. Perfect for someone like me who is new to caring for houseplants and sometimes forgets to water them.
The only problem with my wonderful coffee-container-turned-flower-pot idea was that the plant grew! It was time to move it to a bigger container, but I didn’t want an ordinary old flower pot. (And I didn’t want to pay a lot of money for one either! Flower pots can get pricey.)
I lucked out at the Hayfield, Va. Goodwill store. They had a nice selection of flower pots and other interesting containers in the Housewares section.
I selected a blue flower pot that only cost $6.99. And that’s when I got another great idea. What if I turned this ordinary pot into Medusa, the lady from Greek mythology with snakes instead of hair? That would be the perfect container for my snake plant!
Drawing faces can be challenging for me. But, like anything, it gets better with practice. Before I started this project, I sketched a few practice faces on paper and watched a YouTube tutorial about how to draw Medusa.
When I felt comfortable with my concept for her face, I sketched it onto the pot using a dry-erase marker. The dry-erase marker worked great! It was easier to see on the ceramic pot than the pencil I tried at first. And I could easily wipe away any lines I didn’t like and try again. I re-did her mouth a few times until I was happy with her little smile.
Once I had Medusa’s face in place, I came back with a black Posca paint pen and traced over the red dry-erase marker lines. After the paint pen dried completely a few minutes later, I wiped off any red lines that were still visible.
Then, I colored in Medusa’s eyes and mouth with more Posca paint pens. These are great upcycling tools if you want to add a little personal style to an item quickly and easily.
Finally, I transplanted the snake plant from the coffee container to the new Medusa flower pot.
Look at her now! (Don’t worry. She won’t turn you to stone!)
I probably wouldn’t have tried out this silly idea on a brand-new flowerpot if I had paid full price for a new one. I would be too afraid to mess it up! That’s one of the things I love about shopping at Goodwill. Paying less for a pre-owned item gives me the freedom to experiment and try out my weird upcycling ideas. Somebody else has already used this item for its original purpose. They donated it instead of throwing it away. Now it’s my turn to have a little fun.
And the best part about all of this is that more than 94 cents of every dollar spent at Goodwill stores supports Goodwill’s mission of providing free job training and education to people with disabilities and other barriers to employment.
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