Crafting with Jo: Pig in a Poke Planters

Or, is it Poke weed in a pig? I'm still on my trash into treasure kick. I found this YouTube channel to converts purchased water jugs into planters. It's actually a couple of them by Home and Garden. While I don't have the 5 liter containers shown in the video, I do have a slew of 1 gallon plastic jugs. My milk jugs are repurposed for rabbit poo tea. I mean bleach and vinegar bottles that we clean with each month add up.

Why couldn't I make smaller planters out of them? Sure, I could. Of course, I could put herbs in them for sale. Not at the farmers market this year. It's closed for the year because of the virus, but wouldn't they be cute? I'd change the design a bit. I don't necessarily like the eyes or the way they made the polka dots. The legs would have to be made smaller. I learned my lesson the hard way, that hot glue doesn't hold up to Georgia temperatures so I'd have the put it together with hot glue and E-6000. I'd make the eyes a little bit whimsy with eye lashes because I can and that's the way I roll.

Here lately, we've had a difficulty finding our canned soda. I tried substituting kombucha for the sodas, but for us, it isn't the same. It and tea are our caffeine source. We got to have our fix. As such, we've had to resort to buying 2 liter and 3 liter bottles. Now we have a goodly supply of these for the garden already. These extra bottles are waste and I had to do some research to repurpose these. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with these yet. I possibilities are endless including a vertical garden.

Can you imagine if everyone did this? There would be only a minor panic at food banks, grocery stores, and such. In the small garden pictured, there are no less than 17- 2 liter bottles. Green beans, peas, salad greens, tomatoes, celery, green onions, and herbs right at your finger tips. All in a 2x3 space.  Now this makes sense. It's good economically, and physical sense. To find out how I did it go here for step by step instructions.

Then there are other ideas to repurpose 2 liter bottles on YouTube, Some are decorative and others functional. Take a look at your trash for inspiration.

A quick related story and I'll end this post.
I remember there was a recycling art show held in Brunswick, GA. It was open to all to enter and we had some renowned artists living there. Her high school art teacher challenged her students to enter and think outside the box. While other students bought new items like plastic spoons, forks, and toothpicks to create their art pieces, Jennifer took a different approach.

Our youngest daughter took the recycling aspect quite literally. She started digging through our trash. She found cardboard tubes from gift wraps and paper towel, a plastic container that yeast rolls came in, a couple of unraveled cassette tape, cans, bottles,broken plastic boxes, broken clock radio, an old stained tie, scratched CDs, etc.  It was all the other stuff I couldn't compost. She filled two garbage bags full, and then set to work. She took all these bits and pieces, glued, screwed, and taped them all together to form a fully fleshed out 5' man sculpture made entirely out of trash. He was appropriately named, "Junkman Bob." The way he was constructed you could readily see and identify each piece of trash used.

When she took him to school, he was proudly displayed as an entry to the art show in the front office for all to see until it was time to move him to the show.  Someone in the office asked where his dog was because every junk man needed a junkyard dog. Our daughter came home from school and raided the neighbor's trash (with their permission). She constructed a dog so her entry became "Junkman Bob and his dog."

Everyone who saw her work of art was amazed. She won an Honorable Mention at the show for Most Creative.  Her prize? She won a signed drawing of the UGA mascot from the artist himself. The original junkyard dogs (Go Dawgs, Go!) from the commissioned artist who also lives in the county. It's a shame that she took all the pictures so
I can't show him to y'all. Someone bought her art project for $50. Junkman Bob and his dog now stands in his organic restaurant to greet his clientele with a "no" sign hung around his neck.  It goes to show you, someone's trash truly is someone else's treasure.

I couldn't possibly be shown up by a then 16-year old girl, so I began looking for alternative uses for items before throwing them away. I've continued this stream of thought until today some 18 years later as does she.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo