Create a pretty (faux) potted maple seedling for your Fall decor

This post was most recently updated on September 23rd, 2019

First day back to school around here, and I’ve got Fall on my brain! I thought I’d share a super-easy little tutorial today on how to make an authentic-looking potted maple seedling for your fall decor, just like this one. I made two seedlings, one for each end of my mantel, but one would also look great on a kitchen island or console table; just about anywhere you have some height to work with. Supplies: Here’s the supplies you’ll need (for one seedling): a clay pot, a circular foam insert (same width as your pot), a faux maple sprig (from floral section of any craft store), a skinny wooden dowel (approx. same height as sprig), a bit of ribbon and or twine, brown craft paint. Optional: moss, chalkboard tag. Total cost: about $10.

Step 1: Fit your foam into your pot. If it’s too tight, just trim some of the foam.

Step 2: Gently twist your maple sprig into the foam being sure not to make the hole too big (or you’ll have a wobbly tree).

Step 3: Now gently twist your dowel into the foam, about a 1/4 an inch from the sprig. You don’t want it too close, or you’ll end up with one large hole.

Step 4: Tie the maple sprig and dowel together tightly with some pretty ribbon or twine, about half-way up, in order to give it some support. You can also tie some near the top if you find it’s a little bendy.

Step 5: To hide the foam, and give it the look of soil, paint it with some brown craft paint. At this point, I also hot glued some moss on top of the foam to give it a more authentic look.

Step 6 (Optional):To give it the look of a nursery tree, you can also add a little descriptive tag. I used chalkboard tags that I had on hand, and simply wrote ‘maple’ in white chalk. But I also considered painting something directly on the pot, or painting the pots in chalkboard paint.