CHEAP RAISED PLANTERS AND PINTEREST FAIL

I absolutely love anything with legs at the moment,

sounds massively wrong, but no... all raised planters or plant stands.
I've seen lots and lots of really gorgeous one's in magazines and on blogs but they are all around, brace yourself £100.
And that's £100 for a mass produced plant pot, not an artisan hand crafted affair.

Rather be burning in Hell than pay that, I had a trawl through all the usual lower priced subjects for one, but not a whiff, not even in H and M,

(well Ikea had a couple, but unless you live on the door step of  one of these holy shrines, even the most hardened of interior addicts would struggle to justify the trek for one small item)

apart from ...

MATALAN

They have big raised planter 38cm x 26cm for £15
and they have slightly smaller ones for £12

And a smallish, 22cm x 13cm gorgeous wood and white raised planter just £8 !!

Raised planters without the need to re-mortgage the house!

This isn't the first time Matalan have stocked interior trends on the cheap and before anyone else.
They had the first affordable but still good, Mongolian wool cushions, macrame, faux plants etc and now they are coming up trumps again with the cheap raised planters.

Matalan's brilliant and cheap faux plant collection, 100 times better than Ikea's frankly awful faux greenery. 

I'd picked up this raised tea light holder from their sale shelf a couple of weeks ago, a snip at £2

Not officially a raised planter but perfect for a succulent or a small spider plant.

So I'm going to get the big gold and black £15 planter to hold a giant money plant that was donated to me for the corner of  my office (no doubt bringing with it a raft of feng shui wealth!)

I'm going to order online with click and collect as not everything is available in every store and can I advise to anyone not au fait with Matalan, you might just go for a browse and see the likes of these ...

and think, this is the worst shop I have ever seen, all that's missing is a gnome pushing a wheelbarrow planter... but bare with me, shop Matalan online, lurking behind the shabby chic etc, they have a buyer who knows his/her stuff and they get it fast.

PINTEREST PLANTER FAIL
While browsing for gorgeous planters
I saw these make your own plant stands.
They had the look I wanted and
I knew where to get the materials for free,
my shed (God the glamour is too much).
So instead of buying one, I would make an uber trendy one for free.
(not that I ever want to follow trends, but if I like something and can do it for peanuts and it's also, 'uber trendy' I will throw uber trendy in to up the bragging stakes).
Pride before a fall etc

Here's the fellow, pretty attractive yes?
All you do is throw a bit of concrete into the bottom of a bucket,
throw in three legs, whatever comes to hand in my opinion, I used three wooden supports from the back of an old headboard with the intention of painting them matt black, what could look nicer, smooth concrete and matt black.

Only having Postcrete, not concrete (I have no idea of the difference, they both set like stone) I greased up a bucket threw some in and stuffed in the three 'legs'.
Even at this stage, looking at the base, I was dubious as to it's slick finish.
Left it set for a couple of days and... it was stuck fast in the bucket so...
I whacked the bucket against a stone block to loosen it and...

 Nailed it!

Absolutely smashed it to bit's getting it out.
Concrete, I actually managed to smash concrete!

The defence, the legs had, initially stuck fast and when the concrete came out (in bits), the outer edges where actually smooth and so I think this Pinterest concrete plant stand would work,
but not with your rough old Postcrete,
and maybe use a thin bucket you could cut away from the concrete.

Now my neighbour is doing something with concrete soon and has said I can have a bit of any leftover so watch this space,
I might nail the 'Pin' or yet again, nail another 'Pintrosity'.