Birdabelia

Plant Sticks

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Plant sticks can add a bit of whimsy or excitement, especially in pots of plants that are not flowering, or otherwise in a boring phase of their lives.

The same charms that make up my new line of exciting trinkets and fun accessories are used for these plant sticks, making it fun to make them.

The most difficult part of the project (apart from choosing the charms) is the twisting of the wire. Two people with the aid of a cordless drill make short work of it.

Mixed trinkets and charms

The charms chosen for the plant sticks are a bit thin to use for something like key fobs, so I decided to combine two or more to make a more substantial top section.

In the first one I did, three charms are glued one on top of the other, with the twisted wire between them.

As I used copper wire for the stem, this will continue to age and get more verdigris as time goes on. Eventually, I envision it to be totally green, like the leaf charms below.

Leaf Charms, showing the verdigris color

Some of the trinkets are really not suitable as charms, as they bend very easily, so this is a perfect place to use them.

Plant Stick in clay pot with plant

The plant stick above is actually three charms, one on the back and a large one with a smaller flower on it in the front. These are charming and fun to place in any plant pot, with or without flowers, or with a bare spot yet to fill in with more branches.

As always, the glue to use is E6000, for now. It dries clear, even though it makes a mess of the fingers!

Charms and trinkets on twisted wire

For the newest ones in this line, I'm using tie wire, which is essential for tying rebar in place, but I use it for a lot of crafts - it's pliable, and in time, it has a great patina, or even rust. For this purpose, it will do the latter, I'm sure.

So twisting it poses a problem trying to do it by hand. I make a bend in it, and then use a punch to hold it while twisting it with pliers, but it's slow going. I've ordered a cordless drill to do this part of it, more to follow when it arrives. Hubby will help with his larger cordless drill, which is too hard on my wrists, but that will get some of the wire part out of the way.

So much variety in the charms, two to a stick

Then the next process is gluing on the charms. I'm going to use a lot of leaves that I ordered a while ago, you may see them on some of the fancy jars that I worked on. These are meant to be pendants, so they have a loop. I cut those off with side cutters.

The leaves will go one on each side of the wire, and I might use some of the intricate medallion type charms on some of them. They all go together as they are mostly the brass looking kind of metal, with a darker antiquing on them.