DIY Faux Potting Dirt Using Coffee Grounds and Glue

I wanted to find a way to not have to fill the terracotta pot with the faux dirt. I found that cardboard would be a great barrier to avoid this.

I simply traced the top of the terracotta pot onto a piece of cardboard.

After I traced the pot, I cut the circle out. At this point, you will need to cut your round cardboard piece down to size. You can do this by gradually trimming your circle until it fits snuggly over your faux plant pot inside the terracotta.

Once I cut the circle down where it fit snuggly over the faux pot, i removed it, and placed a hole in the center of the cardboard.

I found placing a pen in the hole of original pot was an easy way to get as close to the center of the circle as possible

From overhead, I placed the circle down toward the terracotta pot, until it hit the tip of the pen.

You can eye the mark and see if it looks close to the center.

Once I determined the mark was close enough to the center of the circle, I poked a hole through the cardboard.

Once a hole was made in the cardboard circle, I poked the faux stems through the hole.

I then placed the stem back into the original pot.

Make sure to push the cardboard up near your faux blooms. This is where your dirt will be.

This is how my faux plant and cardboard circle looked once in place.

For your faux dirt, you will need dried coffee grounds. I placed my wet coffee grounds into a bowl to dry.

The tutorial I found suggested using white school glue. I found this locally, here in Germany. Elmer’s would work just fine.

I spooned some coffee grounds into a plastic bowl before adding the glue.

I then added the glue. Don’t go to lightly on the glue. You will find a need to add more as you mix.

Start mixing your glue and coffee grounds together. It will be sticky. Make sure to keep adding glue to the dry grounds and continue to mix.

Once your grounds and glue are mixed well, it should look similar to this.

Remove you faux stems from the cardboard before adding your coffee glue mixture.

Place the grounds mixture on top of the cardboard. Continue to add mixture until the cardboard is covered (with exception of the centered hole in the cardboard.)

As you can see here, I left the hole in the cardboard open and free of the mixture.

Once you have your coffee ground glue in place, use your scoop to gently break up the chunky pieces.

Once you are happy with how your faux dirt looks, place your faux stems back through the hole in the cardboard.

Doesn’t this look so much nicer than the original “dirt?”