I had so much fun with the last trash to treasure project that I decided to do another one today. This time I am starting with one of the plastic tubs that cat food comes in (in this case the Meow Mix brand) and I am turning it into a half barrel like I see used in landscaping so much. I have seen these used as beautiful planters as well as small water features in gardens. I also saw a really cool coffee table made with one. I love the look and I think I may make myself some more of these so I can make multiple projects using them in the future.
Off camera I cut the rim off the container using a pair of heavy duty scissors/shears. It was a lot easier than I expected. I had decided to do this step off camera because I wasn’t sure how I would end up doing it. If I had realized how easy it would be to cut off I would have filmed it.
After the rim was off I cleaned the inside with some isopropyl alcohol to remove anything that might prevent paint from sticking. Then I gave the inside a good coat of black craft paint. Allow this to dry.
Next I painted some thin cardboard to use for the wooden staves on the outside of the barrel. This is one of the sheets of cardboard I have in my stash that was part of the packaging for cat food. It is about the same thickness as a cereal box, use whatever you have that is about the same thickness. I first painted with a base coat of a warm brown. I used a burnt umber paint. Allow this to dry.
Next I used a couple of colors of orange paint (Buttered Yam and Pumpkin both from Anita’s) to dry brush on some “wood-grain” over the brown base coat. This is really simple and once cut into strips and mixed up it really fools the eye into thinking it’s wood. Allow to dry.
If you had any spots where your dry brushing left a blob go back with the same brown as earlier and dry brush that over to blend those spots. Now allow all the paints to dry completely.
Once the cardboard sheet was dry I cut it into ¼” wide strips then cut those to 1 ½” long. I coated the back of each strip of cardboard with tacky glue, added three dots of super glue to the barrel (1 at the top, 1 at the bottom and one in between) then added the strips of cardboard. I did my best to keep these all straight up and down. This means that they do overlap at the bottom a bit on most of them and I tried to keep the tops tight against each other. The next to last one had to be cut down in width then the last one added in to fill. Allow the glue to dry enough to hold everything in place.
I did get a lot of super glue on my fingers in this process and I did manage to lift a big chunk of the black paint from the inside bottom of the barrel because of this. It was to just cover up that spot with some more paint when I was done.
Meanwhile I had painted a scrap of medium weight card stock with some more black paint to use as the bands that hold the barrel together. Remember distance around the circle is just over 3 times the diameter so allow long enough area. (diameter times 3.14)
Once the paint was dry I cut 4 strips that were 1/8” wide and longer than I needed. I cut 4 because I was planning to use 3 for the bands on the barrel and I wanted an extra “just in case” (it’s been one of those weeks) but I ended up only using 2 of them. I decided that a 3rd band would have looked too crowded on the side of the barrel.
Once the glue dries your half barrel is ready to add to your mini world.
As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.
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