You Will Need

• brown corrugated cardboard
• metal ruler
• craft knife and cutting mat
• flat artist’s paintbrush
• white craft glue
• white tissue paper
• soft, medium-sized artist’s paintbrush
• clear matt varnish

To Make

1 Cut the corrugated cardboard into 2cm-wide strips, using a metal ruler and craft knife. The corrugations should run across the width of each strip.

2 Form the base of each pot by rolling up a piece of corrugated cardboard as tightly as possible. Keep the corrugations on the inside and use a flat artist’s paintbrush to apply white craft glue to the smooth side while rolling it up. Keep adding more strips until the base is the required size. Place the roll on a flat surface and flatten it with your hand before leaving it to dry.

3 Once the base is dry, smear the edges with glue and encircle with a strip of corrugated cardboard with the ridges facing inwards. Stick the next strip to the first one. Repeat until the pot reaches the required depth, taking care to space the strips evenly. Position them close together for a pot with a wide neck, or further apart if you’d like one with a narrower opening. Finish with a strip that encircles the entire pot. Ensure that the ends come together neatly, and that the edges are also neat.

4 Finish the pot in papier-mâché. Dilute some craft glue with water and use a soft, medium-sized artist’s paintbrush to layer strips of tissue paper over the outside of the pot. This will also add reinforcement and attractive texture.

5 Leave to dry, then seal the pot with clear matt varnish that won’t turn yellow or stay sticky. (We used Dala Deco Varnish Dead Flat.) Use the cardboard pot to display a small pot plant or cactus (in a separate pot because the cardboard isn’t water resistant), small pebbles or trinkets.

Good Ideas

• Use handmade paper instead of tissue paper for pots with even more texture.
• The pots can also be painted a colour before being sealed with varnish.

Text and image: Ideas