Hypertufa Behind the Scenes

I saw these in the spring edition of Martha Stewart Living and was excited to make them for the new house. I love the tables too and I am thinking they might actually work well for bed side tables as well.



Hypertufa Behind the Scenes: "

Spring is in the air in New York which has me excited about plants and gardening for the summer. I currently have big plans to make Hypertufa Pots from our March issue and create an oasis on my roof for the summer. Hypertufa is a stone-like substance made by mixing peat moss, perlite, and portland cement with water. After a bit of trial and error I found the process quite rewarding and even a bit addictive. Here is a behind the scenes look at the development process – and for instructions on how to make them click here.

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1 Some very initial experimenting with boxes and cement tubing for molds.

2 I tried lining chair caning in cement tubing from home depot

3 The sand was too heavy and didn't really capture the textures the way I had hoped.
The pot looked a bit like a tire - so that idea stopped there.

4 Hypertufa is best done outdoors. Since that wasn't possible we covered the floors with drop cloths - at times it still got a bit messy.

5 Making one of the first Faux bois planters.

6 Once filled the mold sets for 36 hours

7 Faux bois planter with inner container removed

8 Two finished faux bois planters - the same mold is used for both containers.

9 basket mold setting

10 finished basket containers

11 Small basket with larger basket on top

12 Table top slabs setting

13 Table top slab with dusty miller embedded

14 Table top slab with eucalyptus embedded

15 Finished table top embedded with elephant ear leaves

16 These containers were molded from milk and orange juice cartons and colored with mason stains

17 These planters were molded from wicker baskets

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