Succulent art: upcycling plastic bottles

Raise your hand if you are loving succulents right now. Everyone? Ok good, me too! (Who remembers these cute succulent teacher gifts I made one year?L) I’m even more so loving succulent art because I can’t over water it or let it die, ha! I’ve been playing around with some different ideas but I’m bursting to show you these succulents made from upcycling plastic green bottles. While I originally was trying to adapt this idea to work for preschool, it turned into an adult only (or supervised big kid) project that’s super cheap and equally fun to make.

How do we make this succulent art?

To create your own little collection of plastic succulent art sculptures, you basically need only three things:

Materials:

Plastic bottles (rinsed clean and dried)

Cutting tools (strong scissors, exacto knife, box cutters)

Heat element- kitchen blow torch or long lighter work perfectly.

Directions:

Cut your plastic in different ways. The more you cut the bottles and thinner you make each cut, the more the pieces will curl and twist. Plastic shrinks when it’s heated so keep that in mind. This is a lot of trial and error but don’t feel bad experimenting- using recycled plastic means you can’t really “waste” materials!
Holding the bottom edge of your plastic piece, light your heating element and hold it very close to the plastic. Watch closely as the plastic starts to move and shrink. If the plastic starts to get dark turn off the heat or move it away (hot plastic will drip so be careful of your skin and tabletop surfaces!
Keep heating all parts of each succulent art piece you want to make. Parts of plastic that aren’t cut will still warm and curve and shrink in cool ways so keep playing with it until you are happy with how the plant shape looks.
Once the succulent art is cool to the touch you can add it to any pot or container that you like! We experimented with kinetic sand inside the pots or just using hot glue. You could also use real soil, squish down some air dry clay or even play dough.

I must say each little plant has its own personality. They look awesome set on a windowsill that gets natural light because there are translucent and shiny. I get so many compliments on these from friends and family that walk into the kitchen and they can’t believe each one is made from an upcycled plastic bottle!