I spent Sunday night just the way it was intended, sitting on my butt.  Well, not JUST sitting, as you might have guessed I am a little too ADHD for that (no really diagnosed and everything).  I sat and watched Lars and the Real Girl, ate my Indian food left overs and made jewelry.  After last week's super sale, impending in-law visits this week and a trip to Dallas on the horizon for this weekend there was a lot of jewelry to get made.  Luckily I hammered through a ton of stuff and Hope and I should be able to mail out a lot of things today.  Anywhoodle after Lars and before the movie about Genesis (the band) Chris and I watched an episode of House.  It makes me sad that they have my favorite Massive Attack song as their theme even though I actually like the show.  During the episode a Miracle Gro commercial came on that caught my attention and I have spent the entire morning looking for the clip or pictures from it.

Usually I don't look up for commercials, let along ones from Miracle Gro but this one was really cute.  There was a young girl and the story line was "look at this quirky girl make all this weird stuff into planters for her garden".  I too being a weird quirky girl that uses ... jars as planters and has trophies stuck throughout my garden was glued to the TV.  She made a hanging basket out of one of half of an old metal globe that was amazing!  Old drums were used as flower pots (and to think I have just been using them as trash cans around my house) and my favorite were the bowling ball planters lining her stair case.  The other two projects I get, but I need more details on these bowling balls?  Did she cut off the tops and they are hollow inside?  How did she cut off the tops?  Did she cut off the bottoms a little too so they would lay flat?  There is so much I need to know because I have a ton of brightly covered bowling balls in my house.  Who can resist them at the thrift store, I know I'm not alone.  I even registered on the Miracle Gro website and posted on a blog there in hopes of an answer!  In the meantime I thought I would share a few pictures of oddball planters around my house.

I collect thermoses and a few were missing their lids so I spread the collection out into my dining room and made them into planters!

I found this vintage ice cream maker at an antique shop and the minute I saw it I knew it would make an amazing planter.  I took out what mechanical guts that I could and filled it up with dirt and ferns.

This is a little array of planters on my back porch.  Some are just plain pots, one is mosaiced and one is a vintage plaid coffee can.  I also found a bag of dirt bike trophies at the thrift store that I stuck into a ton of plants.

A metal meat drawer from an old fridge now holds plants in my backyard.  I found this little treasure in someone's trash one day.

Chipped cookie jars missing their lids are transformed into planters at my house.  I have another one that sits next to my stove and holds ladles, slotted spoons and other tall cooking utensils.

One of the things Chris and I used to love to do together when we first started dating 10 years ago were crafts.  Well we didn't do a lot of crafting but we did adorn these flower pots with shells and super glue after a trip to the beach.  This is a before and after picture as to what the weather has done to the pot through the years.

Back when Naughty Secretary Club was a zine I had a few gardening how to ideas.  I thought I would repost the project about making a bird cage into a hanging basket here.

So I was reading that Fab book PAD that no home is complete without and there was a lamp that someone had made out of an old birdcage. Inspiration hit me...

I thought I'll make my birdcage into a hanging basket for a plant instead, and that is just what I did!

Luckily, my parents had this old rickety bird cage in their garage from some parakeet I had many moons ago. Thanks God I have had a tetanus shot recently one stab with this cage and lock jaw would have set in for sure!

And so I had my cage now I needed the other stuff...

I used a plant already in a hanging basket and basically just switched houses on it.  I am not sure what kind of plant this is, but is seems to be in the succulent family and has little flowers. What I was looking for was

A) something that vined

B) something with thin branches that could fit through the wires of the bird cage.

I also got a coco husk liner to set the plant in so dirt wouldn't fall out through the open sides.

  Here is where it got a little tricky...

Well first of all I immediately threw away the tacky basket that poor plant had been subjected to. I then sat the plant inside the coco husk liner. You might need to add a little dirt, but I didn't. I then sat the whole thing inside a plastic bag so the plant would not get as damaged as I shoved up into the cage.

I took the bottom off of the bird cage and gently began to squeeze the plant up into the cage.

Once the plant was all smooshed in, I slid the bottom back on the cage. I then cut away at the plastic bag and pulled it out.

At first the poor plant looked a little squished, but never fear that is what wire clippers are for. I took out a few wires of the bird cage just so the plant could come out a bit.

I then sat and fingered out the vines of the plant so that it was coming out all over the birdcage.

Presto! I had my new hanging basket in a bird cage!

Remember again that all container plants need to be fed and hanging baskets in particular are going to need more water.

You can hang this from a tree or on your apartment balcony. I sat mine as the centerpiece on my patio table.

I still keep an eye peeled for cute bird cages when I am out and about.  5 years later there is a different plant inside the cage, but it still hangs in my yard.  These days I don't do much gardening I leave that my husband Chris.  Read all about the landscaping he did in our front yard here and the loquat cobbler he made from the tree he planted here.

I'll keep you posted on whether or not I find this infamous Miracle Gro ad.  What cute things have you seen used as planters?  Inquiring minds want to know.