DIY Macramé Hanging Planters

Welcome to the Kids Korner- the place where we show you how to bring your little ones into the garden. Each month we bring you ideas on how to spend time with your children, how to embrace their creativity and enable you to spend quality time with them doing exciting projects.

We’re super keen on up-cycling, re-using, reducing and recycling whatever we can get our hands on. But some projects don’t even need up-cycled materials- they are so simple, you are guaranteed to have the materials lying around!

What is Macramé?

The word Macramé is from a 13th-century Arabic weavers’ word migramah which means “fringe”. Primarily, Macramé is a form of weaving. The initial knots of Macramé are the square knots, also known as reef knots. They form the foundation of the woven piece. This craft was originally adopted by sailors, who used the knitted rope as a protective cover for anything from knife handles to parts of ship mechanisms.

Friendship bracelets and other crafty items have long since been made in this way, so you can see that it is easy to do and very versatile.

What do we need?

• Thin rope
• Pot covers and potted plants
• A pair of scissors
• stain, spray paint or acrylic paint (optional)

The Steps:

• Start off by taking 12 equal 1 meter lengths of rope and aligning them.
• Make a big knot out of all 12 lengths
• Separate the knot four-ways into a cross shape. This cross shape will span into four directions and each direction will have three pieces of rope.

• Place your pot cover over the cross to demarcate pot size, and make knots in each rope section at the point where the pot cover lies on the rope.
• Now split the rope sections from each other. Take one strand from a section and add to the side to left of it. Do this for each section so that new three-strand sections form. Make new knots in the rope sections, some distance away from the initial knots.
• Repeat this once or twice, depending on your pot size. For really delicate small pots there is no need to make the macrame intricate. For bigger pots, more knots may be needed, and more in-depth patterns can be made with braiding. We plaited some of the rope after each last knot.
• When you are happy with the size of the pot holder, and your pot cover fits snugly, make a knot at the top from which to hang the Macramé.

Getting the kids involved:

The kids can be involved at any point in this project, given some guidance. But the fun part is getting them to paint or stain the macrame hanger in the colours of their choice. This can be done by dipping the rope piece into a dye, or by spray-painting the entire piece, or by flecking paint onto select parts.

Enjoy hanging your unique hand made creations!

We’d love to see your creations! Tag us on social media using the tag @lifestylehomegarden so that we can see your posts.

Have you read our Kids Korner post all about getting your kids into the garden? Read it |HERE|

We would love to see what you and your children get up to in the garden! Tag us on Instagram using the hashtags  #lifestylehomegarden and #lifestylekidskorner and the tag @LifestyleHomeGarden so that we can see your posts!