Let’s get creative, folks! As the summer months are racing to the finish line (slow down already, for the love of ice pops and flip flops, sheesh!), don’t spend them in the garden of boring. To end your craft-tastic summer with a fun bang, we’ve rounded up our list of planter ideas using some of the most funky and unusual items we could find. Martha Stewart would be so proud!

Funky Planter Ideas

1. Old Floppy Disk Planter

Listen, technology isn’t just digital anymore and floppy disks are not obsolete, contrary to what you may have been told. You can prove it to all of  your pals too by making some of these quirky little floppy disk planters. Who’s the smarty-pants now?? This is a fantastic way to reuse an old object that would otherwise be tossed out for the cooler, sleeker, keychain-size USB stick. All you really need to make them is glue and maybe a small square box if you need a guide to build around. So floppies, don’t cry! You still serve an important purpose… On a sunny windowsill next to someone’s brand new MacBook.

2. Mini Cork Magnet Planter

Now we’re not trying to condone excess drinking over the weekend (or are we?). Really though, think about it for a minute. After a grueling work-week, you know you’re going to let loose with your ladies and probably get a little friendly with one or three bottles of wine. Instead of throwing out all your cork tops from weekends current and past, hang on to ‘em and recycle them into little homes for some baby succulents! Glue a magnet onto them and VOILA! Your refrigerator just got a whole lot snazzier. You can now justify drinking like a fish because you’re playing your renewable part in society.

3. French Press Terrarium

Where are all the coffee lovers at?! This one’s for you. Nothing like a good cup of joe to get those inventive juices flowing, are we right? French presses are the bomb-dot-com, so why stifle their amazingness by just utilizing them for coffee! Spread a little whimsy in your kitchen by creating a teeny, tiny, enchanted world for your countertop.

4. Repurposed Dresser Planter

Instead of growing a wardrobe, give back to Mother Nature and let your garden grow. Repurposing an old dresser for gardening is definitely one of the most unusual items used as a planter, but so lovely when done right! Finding a used dresser is pretty easy too. See if your neighbors are chucking any treasures or scour a local antique shop. Sand it, paint it, re-finish it, the design approaches are endless. You’re bound to stumble upon one fit for a fashionable fairy princess.

5. Retro Stereo Planter

Get all “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” with yourself and break out that boombox to bump some flowery beats. Hell, the idea of a boombox used as a planter makes us want to get all “Carlton Banks” with ourselves, how about you? Whoever it was that imagined this grand idea, we seriously commend you. Stereos are certainly unusual items used as planters, but we’re sure glad that some talented genius could potentially be saving hundreds of these archaic gems from littering landfills where they can now instead sing some sweet sustainable tunes.

6. Gumball Machine Terrarium

Terrariums are too cool so we had to throw another one on the list. Let your inner child get its hands dirty by transforming a simple gumball machine into a mini sphere of life. Gumball machines are the absolute perfect size and shape, inexpensive, and relatively easy to find. However, we don’t recommended stealing candy from a baby, catch our drift? That would just be mean. So trade your sweet tooth for a green thumb! You’ll be so glad you did.

So much DIY, so little summer left! So hop to it and start getting crafty! What are your favorite planter ideas?

Related on EcoSalon

Sumptuous Succulent Plants: Fatten Up Your Garden and Home with the Plants Du Jour

17 Clever Repurposed Garden Planters to Add More Plants to Your Space

Gardens in Glass: Make Your Own Upcycled Terrarium

Images via Pinterest

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Low sunlight, the absence of most greenery and being stuck indoors breathing recirculated air can leave the best of us feeling a little blah during the cold months of autumn and winter. Little pops of nature around the home or office not only give us a psychological boost, but help purify the air. Indoor house plants also offer an opportunity to spice up a space visually with an interesting color or shape. Get inspired with these 8 modern planters, including recycled and handmade options as well as a couple cool DIY projects.

Urban Zeal Indoor Vertical Planters

Urban Zeal offers a range of vertical garden solutions for indoor house plants, including self-watering options and modular sets that can be expanded into entire walls of greenery. The Living Wall Planter has a self-watering tank and is made from 100% recycled, BPA-free plastic, while the Wally One Vertical Garden is an individually sold wool felt pouch that’s super easy to hang. The Framed GoVert Living Wall Kit is an all-in-one set of ten planter boxes in a wooden frame with a water collector tray at the base to ensure that care is relatively mess-free.

Porcelain and Leather Hanging Trio

Etsy is a great source for beautiful modern planters in virtually any shape, color and size. Brooklyn artisan Farrah Sit of Light and Ladder offers a variety of porcelain planters  including this  hanging trio, tiered planters and wall-mounted planters.

DIY Mason Jar Garden

Reuse some old mason jars and reclaimed wood in this wall-mounted planter project – the only other material, aside from the plants and soil, is a type of pipe clamp sold in the plumbing section of hardware stores. Model Summer Rayne Oakes goes through the whole (fairly simple) process in a video over at Inhabitat.

Diamond Hanging Planters

UK-based RawDezign offers these geometric hanging planters in a range of colors, individually cast by hand in a natural resin. Hang them in groups for an even bigger visual impact.

3D-Printed Aqueduct Planter System

This cool 3D-printed planter system for indoor house plants is especially striking when installed in a window. One set includes 10 individual planters, which are strung together so that water poured into the top one will irrigate them all. Components are available individually, too, so you can customize the look and size.

The Art of Kokedama

Want to get ultra-minimalist, yet still earthy and organic? Try your hand at the Japanese art of kokedama, or moss ball planters made with string. The results are especially impressive with trailing plants that have a bit of pep to them, like ferns, or a mixture of trailing and vertical plants. This process is a bit messy, but surprisingly easy. Get the tutorial at Design Sponge.

 Related on Ecosalon: 

The Green Appointed House: 15 Ways to Decorate with Houseplants

Office Plants Make You Happy

The post Modern Greenery: 6 Stylish New Ways to Keep Indoor House Plants appeared first on EcoSalon.

Renting? We’ve got 5 ways to help you decorate without pounding a single nail or changing a wall color.

There are many terrible problems with the global economic crisis, not least that the fragile grasp we’ve been precariously maintaining on a flawed system is rapidly weakening and the whole thing is threatening to collapse and when the entire system goes down there is only three days worth of food in the shops and two days worth of fuel at the pumps and we’re gleefully piling headlong into a zombie apocalypse but with bankers instead of zombies and we’re going to need some tins of food and guns…do you own a gun? I don’t own a gun. There’s a can of chickpeas in the cupboard though.

Worse than all of that, however, is the whole mess means nice middle class people like my good self are suddenly unable to buy the house of their dreams. So I’m sitting here in my perfectly pleasant rental complaining about feeling like a student and talking about Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreements because it makes me feel a tiny bit closer to those dreary conversations over a nice Malbec about mortgage rates and isn’t something shocking and something else is a scandal and oh by the way look at our lovely new dado rail.

Owing to a glut of shallowness, the big problem I find with renting is it’s hard to make a house that someone else owns feel like home. I mean, really like home. We can’t decorate (I’ve lived with magnolia walls for so long now that I genuinely believe it is the only color paint available). We can’t knock out the horrific 70s stone fireplace. We can’t even arrange the kitchen so it makes sense (Why is the fridge in a whole other room? Why is there no space by the sink to put washing up? Why is there no work surface next to the stove?)

Still, if there’s one thing ahem-ahem years of renting has taught me, it’s that you can stamp your stamp on a place without drilling holes, knocking down walls or refitting the bathroom. Try these for size:

Peelable wall stickers

Vinyl wall stickers can distract from the fact that your walls are so bland it’s almost like they don’t exist. Actually, walls that only look like they exist might be quite cool in a secret-lair-hiding-behind-them way. Although I guess your neighbors would have something to say about their place being turned into a secret lair, so you’ll have to go with the decals. PVC-free and totally recyclable, they can also be peeled off when you move and transferred to your new pad.

Plants

It’s cheap, it’s easy, it’s oh so eco-friendly. A good bunch of plant friends scattered liberally around your house really can turn a pile of bricks into a welcoming home. Little Kokedama string gardens make a beautiful little design feature, or ridiculously outsized plants, like towering umbrella trees, distract from the bland wonderland of blank, off-white walls.
Alternatively, just find some plants you like, stick them on a shelf and talk to them every now and then.

Storage

You can’t put shelves up and you’re sick to death of bloody IKEA Billy bookcases. The only solution: get yourself to a yard sale and go on a rampage. Pick up battered vintage suitcases and use them to store clothes, stationary or miscellaneous stuff, like this or this, and old glasses or vases can be used to hold kitchen utensils or make-up. If you’ve got a fruit and veggie wholesaler nearby, old wooden apple crates are your storage-based best friend.

Flea Market Furniture

Jo-ann Fortune from vintagebrighton.com says: “If you’re on a budget and have only a small amount of space to play with, look out for mid-century pieces. Built for the smaller living spaces that were becoming more common in 1950s and 60s, mass production techniques made quality materials and innovative design affordable and second-hand pieces remain so. Look for sleek sideboards with sliding doors, extendable tables and stackable chairs, all of which combine the form and function for which mid-century design is celebrated.”

Photos

Nothing says home like that really awkward photo of you in your graduation gown or the picture of your family in complimenting wardrobe colors. Spurn those and get that stuff printed on actual photo paper with actual ink. Use a temporary glue spray to affix them to your wall montage style, or arrange them in one big frame and hope the landlord doesn’t notice one teeny tiny nail hole when you’ve gone.

Love It
Ultimately, home isn’t about a dual aspect lounge or a hand-made Italian kitchen (although we wouldn’t say no), it’s about how you feel. Take time to fall in love with your rental as the place you live right now, as one more rung on your ladder. No matter how frustrating, you’ll probably look back with fondness on the weird tap that needs jiggling to turn off properly or the socket that trips a fuse if you plug your cell phone and laptop in at the same time, so don’t wait, look on them with fondness now.

Most importantly, invite people over as soon as possible. Cook foodie-focused dinners, picnic on the living room floor, lean out of the window drinking wine and watch people walk past. Build a stock of happy memories to revisit and realize it’s not that home but the people inside the home that really make it a great place to be.

Top image: Apartment Therapy, Angrylambie1

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