dining room art
going green is the new norm onso many levels. so today i want to share a craft withyou that i think will bringsome life into your home- and that's a living wall ofart. i first fell in love withliving walls when i visited theconservatory at the bellagiohotel in las vegas. they have this huge pictureframe filled with plants and it is visually stunning. soi was just thinking about how do we view plants... they areusually in the ground or inpots. so to see it up on the wall it was reallyinspiring. so today we aregoing to do our own
adaptation on a living wall ofart using a shoe holder. that's right. i picked thisshoe holder up from a secondhand store. and this is the main componentto our living wall of art, itis going to house all of our plants. what you'llneed is a picture frame, a shoeholder, you'll need some soil, ofcourse, for your plants- ichose succulents- succulents are a durable plant.if you don't have the greenestthumb it's a great plant to start offwith. they don't need a lot ofwater. you will also need some palm frond husk and somestone. these two items will create that nicevisual beauty inside the shoeholder.
you will also need a stapler,some scissors a staple gun and a holepuncher. you will also needsome duct tape to seal the back of the frame.they are the items that youneed to create your living wall of art. let'sget started! the first thingthat we'll want to do is attach our shoe holder to our pictureframe. now depending on how big your picture frame is,you'll want to determine howmuch of the shoe holder you'll wantto use. so lay it down and cutit out and staple it on. all right. now that i have cutit out, what we are going to dois
we are going to take ourstapler and just staple the top of our shoe holder here- allthe way around. because what will end up happening is thiswill pull forward and over timethe soil and the water will pull awayfrom the backing. we want tomake sure that that doesn'thappen. you can see the difference now. there is onlythat much pull, as opposed tothat much pull. okay. now that we have put staplesinto the top of each of ourpockets- to make sure that our plantsare secure- we are now going totake our hole puncher and we aregoing to create holes at thebottom of each
pocket- so that the water candrain out. you're just going togo ahead and make holes all the way down. all right. now here comes thefun part. we are going to goahead now and attach our shoe holder tothe back of the frame. all right. once you havesecured your shoe holder toyour picture frame take a look. i am sure it looks pretty cool!that is the beginning of yourliving wall of art. now what we are going to do iscut off any of the excess shoe holder that we have here-and use our duct tape to put itaround the edge just to secure it.
now the fun begins. what we aregoing to do is add our soil,our stones, our palm frond husk and reallysee this piece come alive. i am adding the husk to thebottom of the shoe holder for afew reasons - one it will help withdrainage, and two, it willvisually look stunning. that was easy. now we need toadd our soil. now this may get a little messy- but that'shalf the fun. it's coming along quite nice.right? don't overfill yourpockets with too much soil. you want toleave enough room for yourplants and stones.
as i mentioned before,succulents are wonderful plantsto work with if you're starting offgardening. because they aredrought resistant and they don't need a lot ofwater. they are the perfectplant for this type of project.i picked these up at my local hardware store.what i am going to do is simplybreak up the plant- making sure that every piece ofthe plant has a little bit of root- and i amgoing to place themstrategically around the piece. the living wall of art isreally coming to life,literally. so what i am going to do now,is add one final plant- just tobring some color. to this piece. i have aptenia,it is another type of succulent
- and it flowers this beautifulpink flower here. so we aregoing to add this throughoutpiece. ok. that's the last plant. once you have placed inthe amount of plants that you desire- thebest thing to do now is go ahead and give it some more soil andput some of the rock in place. you can put them anywhere. i ammaking just a pattern. you cansee that i have and just have fun with it- andremember there are no ruleswhen creating art. and there you have it, abeautiful living wall of art. it is awonderful craft to do and itwill bring a lot of
life to you space. are you acrafter on the hunt for yournext project? we have got tons of quick andsimple ideas for you to try.just visit athomewithdidiayer.com. youwill find tons of creativeprojects from my craft room. along with step by steptutorials, guest crafters, and5 minute d.i.y.'s. the ideas are as endless asyour imagination when you visitathomewithdidiayer.com!