Personalizing Your Planters: How to Put a Face on Your Pots

Creating human faces on planters and adding plants for "hair" is a fun way for kids to bring life to container gardening. Invite them to use their imagination to create different facial expressions and help choose the right "hair." They'll also love giving the occasional haircut.

Materials Needed:

• pot with drainage holes
• potting soil
• hairlike plant, such as Mexican feather grass or carex

• craft supplies (glass stones, buttons, small polished rocks, tempura paint, permanent markers, twine, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, wine corks, colored felt, tiny shells, etc.)
• outdoor craft glue or waterproof epoxy
• paintbrushes, scissors (optional)

Plan the Face

Sketch ideas for faces on paper first. Decide which craft supplies you will use for various features. Consider, for example, a zipper "mouth," pipe-cleaner or halved-cork "ears," twine "eyebrows," a cork disc "nose" and button "eyes." Younger kids may find it easier to use paint or markers to create faces. Lay out these supplies on a covered work area near your planter.

Prepare the Planter

Fill the pot part way with potting soil, leaving enough room at the top for the plant's root ball.

Add the plant and top off with potting soil, pressing the soil firmly around the roots.

Water the plant well.

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Make the Face

With adult supervision, use waterproof epoxy according to the manufacturer's directions to affix facial features to the pots according to your sketched-out plans. (For pipe-cleaner "ears" that stick out from the sides of the pot, use duct tape.)

Let your kids' imaginations soar — create bright "eyes" with shiny buttons (Images 1 and 2), split a cork lengthwise to create a "nose" (Image 3), add tiles for "teeth" and use large leaves for "ears" (Image 4). Other options: Glue on rosy "cheeks" made from red felt circles, give your plant head a collar made from fabric scraps, or affix earrings made from small polished rocks or glass stones. Or use twine to create a big grin filled with tiny shell teeth. Twist together pipe cleaners to fashion glasses.