DIY Concrete Unicorn Flower Pot

Like the rest of the crafting world (and much of the world in general, if we’re being honest), have you caught total unicorn fever? Honestly, I’d go so far as to say that I’m equally obsessed with the way sparkly unicorns have made their way into DIY, fashion, and pop culture in the last few years. Since I’m always looking for new ways to combine the things my kids love with their favourite kinds of DIY, I doubt it’ll come as any surprise that we recently made some unicorn themed crafts together. I also recently taught my kids how to work with DIY concrete and they completely adored that whole process too, so it only made sense to combine the two! That’s how we ended up making these cute little unicorn painted concrete flower pots together.

Do you love unicorns, getting messy on a crafternoon, and doing some hand painting just as much as we do? Then you might appreciate the fact that I made a whole extra pot just so I could document the process and share it for others to see. Check out these step by step instructions complete with photos! If you’d rather follow along with a video tutorial instead of written words, scroll to the bottom of this post to find just what you’re looking for.

For this project, you’ll need:

Fine particle DIY cement
Water
A plate
A spoon
A sand paper block
Scissors
Tape
Oil
A paintbrush
Paint (white, pink, gold, purple, and black)
An empty yogurt tub
An empty toilet paper roll
A plastic plate
Hot glue

Step 1:

Gather your materials!

Step 2:

Use your hot glue gun to apply glue around the top edge of the empty toilet paper roll. Turn the roll over and stick it down in the centre of your piece of cardboard. Cut off the excess around the edges so one end of your toilet roll is now covered in a cardboard circle.

Step 3:

Use your paint brush to cover the whole outside surface of your toilet roll in olive or vegetable oil. This will stop the DIY concrete mixture from sticking so badly in later steps.

Step 4:

Pour water into your DIY concrete powder and mix it together until the consistency is right. Follow the instructions on the packaging of your concrete mix to get the ratio of mix and water right, as it might vary for some brands.

Step 5:

Use your spoon to fill the yogurt tub with concrete mix until about half an inch from the top. Tap the bottom of the tub on the tabletop to even out the surface of the concrete mix. Sink the toilet roll into the middle of the concrete mix, with the end you covered in the cardboard circle facing downward so it meets the bottom of the yogurt tub. Apply pieces of tape across the top of the roll from edge to edge of the tub to keep the roll upright and in place. Set the whole thing aside to dry.

Step 6:

Once the concrete mix has dried all the way through, pinch the ends of the cardboard roll and pull it away from the sides, removing as much of the cardboard as you can to leave an empty cylinder in the middle of the concrete. Next, cut the edge of the yogurt tub and tear that away from the outside surface of your new concrete shape.

Step 7:

Use your sandpaper block to sand your entire concrete shape and get rid of blemishes and inconsistencies all across the outside and top so it’s smooth rather than bumpy in texture.

Step 8:

Use your paintbrush to paint a white ring all the way around the bottom of your new concrete vase, stopping just less than halfway up the pot’s height. Next, add two little upwards facing points to the edge of that white ring wherever you’d like the front of your vase to be. Your unicorn now has a face and ears!

Step 9:

Use your blue paint to mark out the spot where you want your unicorn’s horn to be, right in the middle between the ears. Use this as a starting point to paint your unicorn a gold fringe below the little blue horn base line, like the front of a mane. Next, paint little pink triangles on your white points to be the insides of your unicorn’s ears.

Step 10:

Complete your horn! I alternated mine in stripes of blue and pink, making each one a little less wide than the one it rests right above so the shape decreases and peaks like the tapered unicorns you’ve seen before.

Step 11:

Use black paint to give your unicorn eyes and lashes! I painted mine like little upward arcs to look like the unicorn’s eyes are closed in a smile.

You’re all finished! You could easily use this technique to make the same shaped vase but hand painted and embellished it however you please. Just in case you’d like to try this project out for yourself, here‘s a fantastic tutorial video to help you!