Anyone Can Have A Green Thumb With Our Monster Plant!

Materials Used

We used several products and supplies in the making of our fun monster plant. Below is a list of what we used.

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If you wish to watch a video assembly tutorial, we have one on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYJWBhlqrbU

The monster plant is so fun and has so much personality! It might seem intimidating when looking at it as a hole, but when broken down into pieces it’s not nearly as overwhelming.

Making The Plant Pot

To start, we put together the bottom of the pot. The sides are made of two pieces that are connected by tabs. Add glue to the tab as shown below and attach the two panels together, then connect the ends to create the sides of the pot. We then folded in the tabs at the bottom, added glue and placed one of the bottom panels to close off the bottom of the pot. Press down on the inside so that the tabs get a strong hold. Then turn the pot over and attach the bottom panel.

We then set this part aside and worked on the lip at the top of the pot. The top two panels (the longer two) make up the larger ring and the bottom two (the shorter two) make up the smaller ring. The third piece pictured will connect the two.

Assembling The Ring

To start we took the top set of panels and connected them end to end to create an octagon shaped loop. Then we did the same with the smaller set of panels. Below, the larger ring is on the left and the larger is on the right.

We then took the smaller of the two loops and folded the tabs outward and added glue to each tab.

Next, take the octagon ring panel and slide it over the top to attach to the tabs with glue. (see below, ring on the right)

We then took the tabs on the large ring, folded them in and added glue.

Take the small ring and place it in the center. To reach in and apply pressure on the tabs, it was easiest to reach in using a pencil or the flat end of a craft knife.

Once the structure was complete and the tabs were secure, we folded all the tabs inward then added glue to one so that we could attach the large octagon panel to just the one tab. This made it easier to have everything lined up correctly.

With that tab placed, we added glue to the rest of the tabs and attached the rest of the panel. Focus on getting the outer ring positioned right. Then when you feel the tabs are secure enough, turn it over and press the inside tabs to adhere them to the large panel.

Attaching The Ring

To attach the lip for the top of the pot to the base, fold the tabs at the top of the base inward and add glue then place the lip structure on top.

We then turned the pot upside down and attached another octagon ring to the bottom of the lip. This concealed the exposed tabs.

Making The Rim

There’s one more panel to go on the top of the pot. We added glue to the side of the pot lip and attached the panel making it flush with the bottom of the lip. This let the panel stick up above the top of the structure, which gives it some extra height, allowing the plant to later look like it’s sitting down into the pot. Once all this panel structure is in place, you’ll notice that there are top tabs that can fold over and be glued. Don’t to this yet, you’ll need to have these tabs able to be out of the way when you put the plant in. We will fold the top portion in and glue the tabs later, once the plant has been placed in the pot.

Building The Plant Stem

The next step is to start working on assembling the plant itself. Start with the stem of the plant. The stem consists of 8 pieces. You’ll notice that they have markings on the bottom tabs. These help get them put together in the right order. They start with one hash mark and go to four, then start over with a circle cut out next to the hash marks. So, they go in order I, II, III, IIII, 0I, 0II, 0III, 0IIII.

Starting with the first and second panels (I and II), fold the tabs and add glue to the long one at the bottom edge as shown. Attach to the next panel, making sure to the ends line up. Once the first tab is in place, work your way up until all three are attached to the next panel. Do the same with each successive panel, until all 8 are attached. Then connect the first with the last. This may be a little awkward. We recommend starting at the narrow end and working your way down.

When the stem is complete, fold the tabs at the bottom out and add glue. Then take the large octagon base panel with a hole in it and slide it over the stem, attaching it to the tabs.

Decorating The Plant Stem

We then added the decorative panels to the stem. To keep these straight, we have marked them the same as the base panels for the stem. However, as we didn’t want to put marks and holes in the decorative panels, they are marked just below each panel so keeping the panels on your cutting mat during this step will help keep there from being any confusion.

Making The Head

Next we started working on the plant’s head. For both the top and bottom of the head, we didn’t have pace to do similar markings as the stem has. So instead, they are set to cut as one piece and in the order that they are to be assembled.

Starting with any piece you want, fold along the score lines and add glue to a tab t the top. Make sure to line up starting with the top tab then work y our way down before moving to the next panel. You’ll note that three of the panels (for both the top and bottom of the head) are one tab shorter than the rest. These are in the back of the head and will be the connection point later for the top and bottom of the head to be connected.

Once all eight panels are connected, creating a cup like shape, you can add glue to the tabs in the center and close it off with the center panel. On the bottom part of the plant head, there is an octagon shape that will remain. This is where the stem will attach.

Decorating The Head

Once these two pieces are assembled, you can start adding the decorative panels. The cut the same way, in order of attachment. Fully decorate the bottom part of the head (pictured on the right and shown below fully decorated. The head has a few additions we’ll show in the next step.

When decorating the top of the head, there are slits on the two side panels. These are for attaching the eyes. Each eye is made of two pieces, glued back to back. This is so the ends can be used as tabs, so leave the last little bit (there’s a score line there to guide you) free. Once the eyes are assembled, slide them through the decorative panels with the slits so that they are looking forward. Then you can attach those decoctive panels to the head. We chose to attach the pupils part after they eyes were on the head so we would know the exact angle they would be at, helping to get the pupils as vertical as possible.

Once these two are decorated you can add the connection panels to the bottom of the plant head. We started by attaching the center one then attaching the ones on either side.

Don’t attach the top of the head to the bottom yet. You need to wait until the bottom of the head is on the stem before that happens.

Monster Plants Need Teeth And Eyes!

The next step that we took is adding the teeth and lips to the top and bottom of the plant’s head. Add the lips to the teeth, then center the teeth on the head and attach the middle two teeth. Once they are in place, work your way around on either side.

Attaching The Plant Head Part 1

With the top and bottom of the plant head assembled, you can attach the bottom of the head to the stem. Place the bottom of the head over the stem so that the tabs come through. Add glue to the tabs and hold them in place one at a time. Make sure you have the head pressed down as much as possible so the tabs are coming through at their maximum amount. This will help ensure you get a solid hold.

Potting Your Plant

The plant is ready to be attached to the pot at this point. Add glue to the bottom of the octagon, being fairly liberal with your glue, and place it on the pot.

Now the sides of the pot can be folded in and glued at the tabs to close off the top of the pot and give it a ledge around the top.

Making The Plant’s Tongue

The next step is to assemble the tongue. The tongue is made of two pieces that are attached back to back. Once they were put together, we wove the tongue through our fingers to give it some wave and shape.

To attach the tongue to the plant, we used hot glue on the tab (not pointed) end of the tongue and glued it into the throat.

Attaching The Plant Head Part 2

The final step of the plant assembly is attaching the top of the head. We started by attaching the head to the center panel’s tab, making sure to get it lined up with the score line. When the glue was set, we moved to one of the tabs to the side, then we moved to the other side. You’ll need to reach into the mouth at this point to apply some pressure and squeeze the tabs into place with the head. This can cause the teeth to bend a bit but they’re easily straightened out again once you have the head attached.

Adding A Decorative Vine

With the plant and pot complete, it’s time to work on adding the leaves to the pot. There’s no set place or way the leaves need to go in, we just found something that we liked and worked for us. You can do something similar or entirely different, whatever works for your project and supplies.

We had some floral wire wrapped in a wood looking fiber that we chose to use for a vine. We cut it in two sections and had it wind down and around on either side of the pot. To attach it we glued it in place on the pot base.

Once the vine was in place, we hot glued the leaves to it at random intervals. To give the leaves a bit of life, we curved them around our fingers or on pencils before attaching it to the vine. Once all the leaves were attached, we added the Do Not Feed sign. We chose to wait on this as we wanted to see where it would look best with the leaves and not be blocked too much by anything.

Placing The Ferns

The next leaf we added was the large fern like one. For added strength the fern has a narrow panel to attach to either side. We did this with the ferns and other leaves as well. This helped to make them stand up and stay in position. This large fern like one we chose to put at the back of the plant. We hot glued the bottom to the fern to the plant base. Then we added a little glue to the fern where it touched the back of the plant head. This will help it stay in place in the long run.

Adding The Palm Leaves

Next we added the three large palm like leaves to the base of the plant. Hot glue seemed to be the best choice for attaching the leaves.

Finally, we added to the narrow ferns. These also have the extra center stem for strength. Ours our cut in a couple of different sizes. Once assembled, we held them in the pot at different angles and in different ways. Once we decided on what looked best, we glued them in place. In the end we hot glued the bottom of each to the base around the main plant. Where they came in contact with the monster plant stem, we added a touch of glue to hold them in that position. This provided some added support to help them maintain their position over time.

When happy with all the different plant pieces that we made, we added some moss to the pot. We placed this moss all around the inside of the pot, both on and under the leaves. Our goal was to cover the brown base inside. This hid all or hot glue and the attachment points of the leaves and ferns.