Part 2 The Reveal of the Concrete Pumpkin Pots

If you haven't read Part 1 on how to make Concrete Pumpkin Flower Pots, click on the link below to read instructions on how to make yourself a concrete pumpkin flower pot.

If you are coming here from the website Hometalk, welcome.  You can follow Gear Acres through a reader or Google+.  My posts are generally on how to fix something or how to make something.  We are currently restoring a 1926 home so feel free to follow along.

Part 1 Concrete Pumpkin Flower Pots

The pots are almost dry and were ready to plant with the small mums  plants.  Autumn and Halloween both in one item.  The photo below shows the pots in the Halloween position.

I am currently using the pots in their autumn position which is a plain pumpkin.

The pot looks perfect next to the concrete solar lamp that I made in the spring for the Quikrete One Bag Wonder contest.

Here is one of the two pots in the Halloween position with the jack o'lantern showing.  Both pots have a plain side and a carved pumpkin side.  

I like my Halloween decor to be less obvious and that is why I chose to add the cement palm reading hand in the photo below.

If you are wondering where I purchased this cement hand,  I purchased this one off of eBay about a year and a half ago.  I checked  today and I couldn't find a concrete/cement hand but there are porcelain and resin hands currently listed on eBay.

I love the details on the hand which are quite intricate for cement.  My guess is that this was made out of a mortar mix. 

But back to the pots.  Picking up where I left off yesterday.  After you remove the pumpkin basket from the outside of your concrete pumpkin you will still need to remove the plastic flower pot that formed the inside of the  concrete pumpkin and also the wooden dowel that was used to formed the drainage hole.

I tried lifting the pot straight up and out but ended up folding it in on itself and then lifting up.  This left the dowel in the concrete pot and I used a pair of needle nose pliers to grab it and twist and pull up at the same time and it slowly came out.  Go slow because the pot is not cured or totally hard at this point.

The only thing that I would do differently is to check the inside of the plastic basket to make sure it was perfect.  The plastic pumpkin basket is formed using an injection mold method and this one had excess plastic inside the plastic pumpkin.  This is not a big deal if you are using it as it was intended which is to use it as a basket to hold candy.  

But because of this excess plastic that was molded inside the mold it showed on the outside of the cast concrete pumpkin.  It is hard to see in the photo above but notice the area towards the top and middle.  Because of this it left a void in the concrete pumpkin that you can see in the photo below.

It actually isn't a big deal because it doesn't show when the pot is in use but if I had it to do it over I would check the inside for excess plastic.  My plastic pumpkins can still be used to make more concrete pumpkins.  All that I would need to do is tape up the sides with duct tape and repeat the steps found in Part 1 Concrete Pumpkin Flower Pots

I had fun with this project.  It didn't cost a whole lot nor did it take a lot of time.  With the help of an adult this project could also be completed by a child.  

You can also paint the eyes, nose, and mouth  with black craft paint if you want the jack o'lantern part to be more visible.  I might do that next week after the pumpkin dries out a little bit more.

I found the nursery receipt to show you that I had indeed only spent 22 cents on my two mum plants.  Sometimes I read other blogs and I find their project cost to be kind of unbelievable so I felt the need to show proof that I did indeed only pay 22 cents.  But even at the sale price of $3.99 the mums were a good deal. 

 My Cost

2 plastic pumpkin baskets $2.12

2 mum plants $.22

dowel already own or you could use a pencil

concrete mix left over mix from another project

My total cost $2.34

Your cost if you pay the sale price for mum plants w/o rewards bucks $8.46
Pumpkins baskets $2.12
1 40lb of Quikrete $4.05 
Pencil in place of the dowel

$8.46 (mums) + $2.12 (2 pumpkin baskets) + $4.05 Quikrete $14.63 Total

Tools needed
Drill motor
Drill bit that is the same size as the dowel/pencil
Utility knife
Scissors
Sandpaper
Needle nose pliers
Hand shovel or scoop
Container to mix concrete 
Water

Reuse Repurpose Recycle