What You’ll Need:

Rubber dinosaur toys / figures (as many as you want to make)
Box Cutter / Exacto Knife
Large Sewing Needle
Spray paint in your choice of colour/s
Small plants (succulents or air plants)
Newspaper / drop sheet for painting

1. Carefully cut a hole in the back of each figure to pot  the plant in. Decide which plant will go in which figure so that you can cut a smaller/bigger opening if need be. Make sure your figures are rubber as this can be fiddly depending on the size and shape. Trying to cut into hard plastic is only going to increase your chances of injury.

2. Next using a large sewing needle poke some drainage holes into the underside of each figure. Again, be careful! I found that one of my figures was too thick to get the needle through, so I chose to use my knife again to cut some small holes/slits. Decide what is going to be better for you. Also take note of the shape of the figure, if it slopes downward towards the tail you may want to put the holes lower so that you don’t have water pooling inside.

3. Give each figure a wash to remove any excess dust and dirt and then let dry completely.

4. Place figures on the newspaper/drop sheet with enough distance apart to spray all sides of each dinosaur.

5. Give the spray paint a good shake and apply thin even coats to each figure. Be patient with this stage. Leave each coat so it’s at least touch dry in between painting. Your figures will have lots of small, awkward parts to reach so you will need to do many coats from different angles before you have even coverage.I found it easiest to do the top sides then once they had dried completely, I turned them over and did the under sides. It probably took around 3 repeats of this process to get my figures to the depth of colour I wanted all over.

6. Let dry overnight before adding a second colour.

7. If you are adding a second colour, tape off  the areas you want to stay the first colour. I want to make mine look dip-dyed in parts, and only the spines of my stegosaurus, so I taped off all other areas. Again it is important that your first colour is completely dry at this stage or else you will rip off the paint!

8. Using the same method as before add thin coats of the second colour to the un-taped areas. I found that I only needed 1 or 2 coats with this gold, but you may find you will need to do a few depending on your colour choices.

9. Once completely dry you can remove the tape. If you have a sealer, you can do a layer now, I couldn’t find any but so far it hasn’t mattered too much. The paint hasn’t chipped or discolored.

10. Now you can pot your plants. Again, this may be a little fiddly due to the size of the planters, but try to ensure you fill each one firmly with soil other wise your plants are going to sink once you water them a couple of times.

11. Clean off any excess soil and water your plants and you’re done! Place your new dino planters somewhere sunny and remember to water them according to what kind of plant you have chosen. I only need to do mine once a week. I pop them on my kitchen sink or a tray when watering to catch any water that drains out through the holes.

Hope you like your awesome new planters! Much more interesting than boring pots! 🙂