Concrete Thinking

We finally got around to working with concrete and those lovely Jack o' Lantern plastic pails.

Check out the end products!

We mixed up the concrete in a 5 gallon bucket starting with a small amount of cement mix and water and adding more of each until we had used up the whole bag and most of the 1.5 gallon jug of water. 

We sprayed coconut oil in the molds (but not on the outside of the cup used to make the planter, so that was a pain to unmold).

Jack o' Lantern Planter

We put rocks in the cup to try to weigh it down inside the pumpkin, but we ended up using a brick to keep it pushed down anyway. Two days later et voila!



I was happy with the results, but it's obvious we are not concrete experts (yet!). There were quite a few air bubbles in the molds when the concrete set.



After I admired the work, air bubbles and all, I put the casts into a water bath for a couple of days. The jury is still out on this step, but from what I read, the water bath helps the concrete set harder. I've no idea so we shall see.



I didn't seal them when I took them out of the bath. Maybe next time.

Snake Plant

I put a snake plant in there for now, but I think I will change it out with some fall plants soon...

Surrounded by pumpkins and cute little kids