Rock Garden Frame Made of Concrete, Rock, Plants, and Other Used Materials

I ran into several old acrylic framed canvas of mine the other day, and want to give these canvas a new look that I have long been thinking about -- A rock garden with plants and flowers in oriental art style. I have made many dried flowers this summer and think I can put these into good use. My rock garden framed art should be able to hold small fresh flowers as well. I gave it a try and liked how it turns out. Here are steps if you are interested.

Supplies

• Three used frames of the same size (outside).
• A couple of empty plastic bottles (or any household items that can use to hold tiny plants).
• Old towels (to help secure plastic bottles with concrete)
• Plastic food wrap (or plastic sheet cut off from any plastic bag), rubber band
• Foam sheets (half inch thick or more, depends on the thickness of the frames)
• Acrylic paints, brush, color palette (or a piece of plastic will do), water bottle
• Cement & sand
• Craft glue, Wood glue & Painter’s putty
• Flower foam
• Self-sticky wallpaper/decorative tape (2” wide)
• Small flowers, plants (fresh or dry), small rocks, stones

Step 1: Prep the Frames

Keep the canvas on one frame and remove the canvas from the other two frames.  In the final layout, the top frame should be the one with widest frame and the one with canvas at the bottom as shown.

Step 2: Design & Paint Frame Background

Draft the layout of rocks on the backside of the frame with canvas. Then color the background with your preferred color. 

Step 3: Prep Flower/Plant Holder

Cut the plastic bottles to the designed rocks shape. This will later be used to hold flowers/plants. The size of bottles could be adjusted later if you want to change the shape of the rocks. 

Tip: If you have the flower foam, it might be wise to put in the flower foam at this step rather than later as I did.

Step 4: Prep Foam Sheet to Shape Rock

Design & cut the foam sheet to match the silhouette of the rock. 

Tip: I initially cut off too much foam, and I have to adjust the shape of the foam by using toothpicks to secure the extra pieces of foam.

Design the 2^nd layer so that the rock has some change in different layers

Step 5: Apply First Layer of Concrete

Cover the opening of the plastic bottle with plastic food wrap to avoid concrete fill into the bottle.

Then wrap the plastic bottle with towel, trim extra towels. Secure with rubber band.

Put the plastic bottles in place.

Mix the cement and sand in ratio of 2.5 to 1. Add water and mix.

Lay the first frame flat. Fill in the concrete up to first layer of the foam sheet.

Step 6: Add Rest of the Concrete

Put on the 2^nd layer of foam sheet, secure with toothpick. Then apply second layer of concrete.

Add extra on the top to shape the rock. 

Wait for a day till dry.

Step 7: Paint Concrete

Color the rock to give it a natural look.

Remove the foam and clean.

Color the rock. We got Grandma to help!

Step 8: Prep Plants

My asparagus fern is dying… so I trimmed some off the dried branches and colored these.

Step 9: Add Flower Foams

Remove the plastic wraps covering the bottle and (skip this is you have done it in step 3) cut flower foam to fit in the bottle.

My frames are not of the same width, so I cut some flower foam to fill in the gap as shown.

Tip: We use the flower foams to fill in the gap so later we could try to stick some dried branches to these gaps if we would like to do so.

Step 10: Put Frames Together

Glue three frames with wood glue, then fill the outside gap with painter’s putty to smooth the outline. Wait till dry.

Wrap both inside and outside of the frame with self-sticky wallpaper.

Step 11: Paint the Frame

Paint the frame with desired color

Step 12: Decoration

Glue on rocks for decoration.

Add dried plants. With plastic cup used earlier and flower foam, you can put fresh flowers as well.