Plant Night

Let me tell you that daddy day care has been going great! Or at least from my perspective it has been. Julius has been taking bottles! Will has also been working to educate Julius or at least Alexa has. That’s what it seems like when listening from the basement. I keep hearing things like, “Alexa, define gravity” followed by Alexa rambling off a paragraph of text. Maybe Julius will absorb some of it through educational osmosis.

Julius, what do you really think of Daddy’s schooling?

Since daddy daycare was going so well we decided to host a Ladies’ Night (plus board games in the mancave with Will). For a while I’ve been wanting to host a “Plant Night” where we plant a counter top garden of some kind. Everyone wanted to plant an herb garden, so that was what we decided to try. To keep costs low and reduce waste, we used 28 oz tomato sauce cans that I picked up from the town recycling center. Since I could only obtain 16 cans and I wanted everyone to have 3 planters each I also purchased some 6″ terra cotta planters from Job lot for only 1.80 a piece. With the exception of the activated charcoal, I purchased all the planting items from Job Lot. All the craft items were purchased from Walmart, Joann Fabrics and Dollar Tree (and several people brought their own supplies and containers if they wanted something specific). The supplies below were for 10 people and cost a total of $70 (excluding the cost of the terra cotta pots) which includes plenty of leftovers.

Menu

Bacon quiche with hash brown “crust” (GF)
Onion quiche with hash brown “crust” (V, GF)
Garden Salad
Simple quiche and salad dinner.

Preparation

Purchase all crafting supplies and planting supplies (see below).

The day before the party, wash the cans thoroughly then dry. Make sure the tops of the cans are not sharp, by using a can opener and sandpaper to thoroughly remove any burrs. Then spray paint the outside of the cans with white primer.

Prepare the quiches, cool and then refrigerate.

Set parsley seeds (if using) in a bowl of water to soften seed shells.

Spray paint washed and dried cans with primer

Day of the party Set out a crafting table with glue guns and other crafting items.

Set a separate table with planting supplies. Cover table with a plastic table cloth and the floor with a drop cloth.

Prepare salad.

Place the quiches in the oven an hour before the party at 350 F. After 20 minutes drop the oven temperature to 150 F to keep warm. If the quiches start to brown too quickly, cover with aluminum foil.

Craft materials all set up and waiting for guests

Planting table set out with plastic table cloths and drop cloths under the table.

Making the Planters

What You’ll Need:

30 28 oz cans
white primer spray paint
several packages of clothesline
1.5 yards of burlap fabric
black fabric paint
chalkboard paint
chalkboard duct tape
stencils
stamps
foam brushes/spouncers
disposable plates or palettes
tissue paper
mod podge glue
glue gun
scissors

Let your guests be creative with decorating their planters! Some folks only wanted to add chalkboard tape labels, others decided to do decoupage or other fancy things! Here are a few ideas to get your guests going.

Decoupage:

Rip tissue paper into rough 2″x2″ squares. Coat a 2″x2″ square on your can with mod podge using a spouncer. Apply tissue paper square over the glue and press firmly. Apply more glue to on top of the tissue paper square using spouncer. Repeat, overlapping squares slightly until the whole can is covered.

Morgan and Mary showing up stenciling and decoupage

Rope/Twine Wrapping:

Hot glue a row of rope to the can along the very bottom. Wrap rope snugly around can, tacking with hot glue to can in 2 to 3 spots along every turn. When you reach the top of the can, affix the final row to the very top of the can, hot gluing around the entire perimeter. Cut rope, then secure the end of the rope to the inside of the can using hot glue.

Alie did some lever multi-colored stenciling, and rope works of art.

Stenciled/Stamped Burlap:

Cut a piece of burlap 2″ wider than your can’s height and 2″ longer than the can’s circumference. Stamp or stencil onto your burlap using fabric paint. For stencil: place stencil on fabric, use a spouncer to apply paint evenly over stencil. For stamp: Apply an even layer of paint to a palette or disposable plate, press stencil onto paint then onto fabric. Let fabric dry, then glue to can with a hot glue gun, overlapping at the seam. Glue excess fabric on bottom of can.