DIY Wire Bonsai Tree Garden

For this project we were told to make yard art in the same style as a famous architect. There were many things and people that I could have chosen, but I chose Sir Norman Foster.

While looking at his work I noticed that he has many different buildings that have a silver and blue/grey swirls and layers. I also noticed that he has many buildings that have layers between the different floors, almost like the Sydney Opera House. I decided to do a bonsai tree, because I always thought they were really cool. but since the last plant I had exploded, I never thought I would be able to have one, so I thought of making one that I wont have to take care of.

We had to make a small prototype, so I was just experimenting with how I wanted to do this.

ORIGINAL IDEA COMES FROM BOBBY DUKE ARTS

Check out his channel --->

https://www.youtube.com/user/DukeWoodcarving

Silver and Blue Wire (16 gauge)

Needle Nosed Pliers

Wire Cutters

Pot

Mod Podge

Brown Modeling Clay

Fake Turf/ fake grass

A drill w/ a 1/16th drill bit

A water bottle you don't care about

Duck Tape

I was just watching the video and trying to follow what Bobby did, but since we did different styles, amount and shapes of trees, I only could watch his video for a base understanding. For this prototype I didn't want to use the clay or turf, because I wanted to make sure I had enough for the final product.

Using your drill, drill a bunch of holes into the bottom of the water bottle. These will be very important later. If you need to, duck tape the bottle to the table you are working on, to make it more stable. The biggest tree that I made was very top heavy, so it would just make it easier to make.

Purchase or make a pot that you will put the trees into later. From there all you need to do is fill the bottom of it with brown modeling clay. This will act as the "dirt" of the garden.

From here you get to personalize. Cut a bunch of wire of similar length. Depending on how many trees you want in your garden, that will determine how much of a difference in height you will need between each bunch of wires.

Now that you have your wire and bottle you get to start making the tree. Feed the wire through each of the holes and try to keep them at the same length. Then you just grab all the water and start twisting.

Now that you have the base of the tree trunk, take a few of the wires and branch them off. After you have the branch wire, you twist them together.

After you have your twisted branches, add loops to the end of the wire, to act as leaves. I recommend using plyers for this, it will make it way easier.

Number of loops is up to you, I did 2-5 for each branch.

Make as many trees as you like, just make sure that the wire length is different between each tree.

Cut enough fake turf to fill up the bottom of the pot. Put down a few layers of mod podge, acting as glue, so that way you can just stick the grass right to the clay.

good job