House of Hawthornes

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Hypertufa Hand Planters DIY Project

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DIY hypertufa hand tutorial for your garden (hypertufa is light weight concrete like substance)


Last year when I was making hypertufa containers, I tried to make a hand to hold succulents like I had seen on Pinterest.

I broke my fingers. It was not pretty.

DIY hypertufa hand tutorial for your garden (hypertufa is light weight concrete like substance)

But, I wasn’t going to let losing a few fingers keep me from my dream, so this year I decided to try again.

I used Playtex gloves as my hand form. And my gloves came with free flower seeds. Score!

DIY hypertufa hand tutorial for your garden (hypertufa is light weight concrete like substance)

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I sprayed the inside of the glove with Pam cooking spray (named after me, because I’m so slick).

And wound up this florist wire onto a pencil to make these little corkscrew thingies and stuffed them in each finger (sort of like using rebar when they pour a concrete slab)

DIY hypertufa hand tutorial for your garden (hypertufa is light weight concrete like substance)

See my post on hypertufa containers for the recipe and safety instructions for making basic hypertufa. Since I wanted to make my hands super strong this time, I altered that recipe by doubling the amount of Portland cement used for this project.

I mixed up my hyertufa and stuffed the glove with the mixture, taking extra care to squish it down to the tips of the fingers.

After it was fairly full, I put tiny pin pricks in the end of each finger (of the gloves, not my own fingers) to let out a little trapped air and allow the fingers to be completely filled.

DIY hypertufa hand tutorial for your garden (hypertufa is light weight concrete like substance)

I put the filled glove in a plastic bag and let it cure for 7 days.

After it had cured, I used a razor knife to cut the glove off of it. Razors are sharp. Please do not cut yourself.

DIY hypertufa hand tutorial for your garden (hypertufa is light weight concrete like substance)

A slightly curved hand would have made a better planting surface, but I sort of like the hand coming out of the ground look!

DIY hypertufa hand tutorial for your garden (hypertufa is light weight concrete like substance)

It’s very Addams Family-ish! In a cute way.

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Comments

  3. Thanks for your humor. . . you always make me smile! The hands turned out good and your idea about the Pam-made rebar is an excellant idea.

  4. Another winner! I must show this to my Halloween crazy husband. It’s pretty fabulous. We have body parts in our flower beds during the month of October, but I think we might need a few more during the summer months.

  6. Well I never…
    My girlfriend went through a spate of a hand on her bathroom counter holding a guest towel between thumb and forefinger. They were porcelain factory forms for making rubber gloves. They were lovely.
    There was a booth at a fair once that made plaster keepsake forms. Baby’s hand, lover’s hands, stuff like that. I made one of my hand. It was pretty scrawny and laughable.

  8. He he…very creepilicious I’d say! Please leave one where the mailman walks on his daily route. And make sure you’re Gladys Kravitzing out the window the first time he almost steps on it. I’m bad.

    Do you think this stuff would make a good gnome home for a fairy garden? hmmmm……

  9. Hi Slick, it is kind of “Walking Dead” like there coming out of the ground. What on earth are you gonna do next? xo, olive

  11. Love your hypertufa hand and the planters you have shown in the past. I hope to quit procrastinating and use your recipe and instructions to make a planter or maybe even a hand. As much as I procrastinate, I am still an impatient person. It would have been hard to make myself wait seven days to see how the hand turned out.

  13. Great Project! The possibilities are endless… I could imagine two hands (left and right) coming vertically out of the ground with a bowling ball in the middle.. or basketball if you’re a family who loves basketball.. ha! You would be taking orders in no time at all!
    Oh my I gotta do this one.. I amaze myself!ha!

  15. I really like the fact that we can make light weight planters or containers out of material that looks like concrete. I really want to start this sometime soon…

    I currently live in an apartment so I don’t have the room to do it..But it is fun to watch others like you do it. It would be fun to make a hand a place a little bird in it…. Nice Job I like it.

  16. When making hypertufa make sour you get real peat moss not the stuff called sphagam peat moss. It makes a difference in finished product.

  18. your hand tuned out awesome, love the idea of putting wire in the fingers for extra support.

  19. Well Pam!, your just the type of person I need for my gardening ideas ! I like to have things in the garden that are new to the eye, not the everyday garden store elf, this hand has really caught my eye and I can’t wait to try it! Thanks for ingenuity you have !

  21. Thanks for the tutes! And the hoots (of laughter!) I loved the fingerless ooops! moment. I think I will make some hands using concrete colorant for Halloween!! I have been trying to find some of these type planters for some small red maple trees I am growing. I really like The Rustic look that yours have, even though that wasn’t your intention. That’s the look I’m going for. I couldn’t find any so I greatly appreciate the recipe you provided. I’m heading to the store this morning to get my supplies. Thanks again!!

    • I’ve taken them out of the dirt and stored them in the garage for the winter. I live in Ohio though and we can have a lot of freezing and thawing each winter, so I’m paranoid they’ll crack.

      • I read an article from someone in Ohio, they said they wintered some pots under a sheltered deck and left some outside (raised, not on the ground, sitting in water and snow) and the pots out in the open survived better than the sheltered ones!

    • That sounds like a fun idea!!! If you can find some that are a tight enough weave that the mixture won’t leak out that might work. Or try spraying them with a heavy duty waterproofing spray like you’d use on your boots?

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