The Best (and Easiest!) DIY Succulents - Part 2, From The Simplest of Recycled Materials

{This post is part 2 of a 4 part series of egg carton succulents. See part one here.  } {Part of the purpose of Pink Salt Riot is to give women everywhere tools to help them live lives of authentic joy in Christ. And part of how I plan to do that? By sharing amazing and beautiful recycled DIY projects. Wait, what? Yes, I know. Not exactly the first thing that pops into your mind, is it? Learn more about why I feel recycled DIY is an important addition to my mission in this post, and get the down low on everything you need to get started right here.} Welcome to Part 2 of my egg carton succulent party! You got all the wordy preamble in Part 1 so I will just get right to it today! Today I am showing you how to make a darling little aloe style succulent with the pieces left over from the first tutorial.

Here's what you need for your succulents:

• Egg carton: the recycled paper kind
• Scissors
• Hot glue
• Green paint

Pretty basic, right? I bet you have most, if not all, of the things you need at home right now! 1. Start by cutting apart your egg carton. Cut the lid away from the bottom of the carton. For this particular tutorial you will only be using the triangles from the sides of the egg cups, but in the coming days I will share how to make other varieties of succulents from the top as well - so don't throw it away yet! 2. Cut apart each of the individual egg cups. This is what you will use to make this succulent! 3. Once you have separated all the egg cups, begin preparing the individual pieces. Cut each egg cup as shown above in #3, cutting four triangles out of the sides. They will be varying sizes, and that's a good thing! Repeat with all 12 egg cups. 4.Keep ALL the pieces - this tutorial only uses the triangles you cut out of the sides, but earlier this week I showed you how to use the centers to make another kind of succulents.

Now for the steps on how to make the aloe succulents:

1. Gather all the little triangles cut from the sides of the egg cups. You should have 48 total, but I tend to use about 25 per succulent. 2. Cut a medium size circle (about 2 inches in diameter, but no need to measure! You can always make it too big and trim it later) from any old piece of paper (bonus points if it's recycled too!). Pick 7 of the largest triangles and hot glue them in a circle around the outside of your paper circle. 3. Add another layer of triangles around the inside of the first layer. Be sure that they fill in the spaces in the first layer as shown in the picture above. 4. Keep going until you fill it all in! Add less and less triangles to each round as you come closer to the center and aim to end with to in the center. It works best if you pinch the bottom of the last two triangles together so that you can fit them together and push them all the way down to the paper in the center so they stand up more than the other leaves. See the picture below for reference. And there you have it! A beautiful aloe style succulent to compliment any recycled arrangement! I am prepping for a big master suite remodel in the next few weeks and these are going to play a BIG part in my new dream bohemian bedroom! Now that you have two styles to make, what uses for these succulents are percolating in your mind? Let me know in the comments!