I have this thing about funky, weird, or really unique planters. By “this thing”, I mean they are totally my jam! I even included skull and turtle planters in my pots post! Lately I’ve been getting a little DIY with some recent thrift store finds. This hollow, plastic baby doll head was one of my first projects and one of the easiest. You may feel unsettled reading this post if you have a fear of dolls, or freakishly bright eyes endlessly staring without blinking!

First, I had to scalp the poor thing. You can probably guess I was the little girl who cut my dolls’ hair and drew tattoos and face paint on them on them with markers. As an art project while in school, I even burned part of a doll’s face with a lighter. Okay I’m not very nice to dolls, but I don’t dislike them! I just like using them for… different purposes.

Aww, see? That wasn’t so bad! You’re still cute and happy with the top half of your head missing! This little guy was made out of pretty flexible plastic, so I wasn’t sure it would hold its shape as a planter.

The neck hole/drainage hole was pretty big, so I stuffed a wad of wet long-fiber sphagnum moss tightly down there to plug it up and keep the soil from washing out. Some people line the bottom of all of their pots with sphagnum moss. I don’t always, but felt it was necessary in this case. Those white spots are bits of perlite which seem to get everywhere in my garden!

For this soil mix, I used half horticultural sand and half peat moss. My usual go-to is perlite for soil aeration because it’s lightweight and cheaper, but I used the sand for this to add some weight and density to fill out the flexible plastic head space. I plopped down some Drosera spatulata and topped the soil with a thin layer of more sand.

And that’s all there is to it! The kid just needs to come inside and wash his face before getting any dinner.

Now that’s more like it!

This was fun and super easy! The sand does fill out the planter nicely and gives it a nice, weighty feeling. The soil isn’t going anywhere unless you squeeze it really hard. I have several more weird and fun planter projects in the works. Some less creepy than baby doll heads, others just as creepy. 😉 Here’s a sneak peak of some other thrift store finds.

And hey! Don’t worry about that slightly lazy piercing blue eye staring at you from across the room…