A Driftwood Centerpiece - Coastal Holiday Ideas

This holiday season, I finally admitted that I needed a little help with maintaining our site and customer service phone calls.  So lucky to have found Serena!  She's a beach girl that enjoys life in Santa Cruz, her specialty is creating fabulous art and jewelry from sea glass and found beach treasures from here on our Northern California Coast.

I am also lucky, because she brought me a big tin of homemade cookies this week, along with a wonderful driftwood centerpiece filled with brilliant succulents for the holidays.

Here are Serena's notes with details on how you could create your own driftwood and cactus planter. Great gift idea for people that forget to water, like me!

For the driftwood planter select a piece of driftwood that has a flat spot on the bottom or knots that will keep the piece stable, you don't want it rolling off the table once it's planted! Choose the area you want to be hollowed out and mark it with a pencil.  

I drilled multiple holes in the driftwood with my drill press to make a channel to put plants inside. Succulents, or cacti are a great choice since they don't need much watering! Don't drill all the way through the wood, leave at least a 1/2" undrilled. I used a piece of rough grit sandpaper to smooth down the edges and the inside. If you have time and you'd like to seal the inside with a waterproof stain that's a good idea. This takes several coats and needs to dry overnight. Or you can just use mini pots to fit into the channel and plant inside the pots. If you haven't waterproofed your planter then just water it outside and let it dry and then bring it inside. 

Another tip; you could use a heavy plastic garbage can liner, cut it to size so it fits just below the edge of your planter. You don't want it to show. I used some peat moss to cover the mini terracotta pots that I placed inside the planter. Another fun idea is to use some floral wire and cut it to the height that you'd like your decorations to be inside the planter and then glue some shells, starfish, sea glass, or other sea inspired treasures to your wire and poke into the planted pots. This adds another level of beachy flare to your design!

I love mine!