Mosaic your planters with old CD’s

I live in a household of IT laaities.  We have spindles and spindles of old data on CD’s and DVD’s.  Database back ups from my first job, installation CD’s, pirated music and whole bunch of things that are just taking up space and gathering dust.  Yup, we all have a CD sleeve full of mix music CD’s from the noughties that has been replaced by various iDevices.  The good news is you can re-use those sparkly things to add some pretty to your plastic planters.  Cut them up and mosaic the shit out of all your surfaces :)…  No, not really, but you can if you want to 😉

So what do you need for this project?

• Old CD’s or DVD’s
• Plant pots
• Tile grout
• Glue

Clean your plastic planters and let them dry.

Recycle old CD’s by cutting them up and using it to mosaic surfaces.

Use tin snips to cut up the CD’s.

I used Bostik Clear glue to glue my ’tiles’

Top tip

Cut up all the CD’s before you start with the gluing process.

I started with this project on Sunday morning, mostly because I was itching to do something creative, I haven’t been spending enough time with my creative bones lately, but also because I am in the process of packing. Oh. My. Word.  It is insane how much stuff one collects/gathers/hoards over the years.  And the worst is, you don’t even realise you are doing it.  /0\…

Anyhow, in the spirit of a life with less clutter and less things the CD’s and DVD’s got relegated to the bin box on Saturday night.  And they were retrieved on Sunday morning to decorate the myriad of plastic planters I seemed to have ‘saved’ for a rainy day over the past couple of years. So I started cutting up CD’s and realised immediately that not all CD’s are created equally.  The CD’s with printed labels on seem much more brittle than CD’s with no printing on them.  The printed CD’s make hairline cracks all along the cut and turns out to be useless.  The aluminium in the cheaper CDs ‘blistered’ when I cut it.

By four o’clock that afternoon I was properly fed up with cutting CDs, so I took a break from the gluing and inspected all the discs I had.  After making a test cut in each one, I discarded the ones that were useless and made ’tiles’ from the rest.  After that the gluing went much faster and I finished two planters before the night was out.

Cut up all the CD’s before you start the mosaic.

All the tiles are glued on, and dried overnight.

Once you are certain your glue is dry you can start with the grouting.  I used a light grey tile grout to tone down the sparkle a bit, but after the fact I think white tile grout might have look nicer.  I also mixed way too much grout.  I think 200 g will be more than enough for the two planters.  Also a cocktail stirrer is not the best mixing tool, but it does work in a pinch.

Mix the tile grout as per packet instruction.

Use a plastic knife to spread the grout between the tiles.

It is dirty work, but use your hand to smooth the grout and to ensure that all the gaps are filled.

Grouting all done and ready to dry.

Do not worry about the little bits of grout on the tiles, once the grout is dry you can remove it with a damp cloth or sponge.

The grout is dry and you can use a damp cloth or sponge to clean the grout from the tile surfaces.

Just a quick word on transferring potted plants.  I have killed many a baby plant because I dug in with my garden fork to try and loosen the soil and ended up hurting the roots.  So here is how I moved the lavenders from the smaller pots to their new shiny bigger pots.