Expandable Star Flower Pot

All plants grow, and, therefore, many need to be repotted regularly so that their roots have space to expand. However, this requires many pots and a lot of time and effort, as well as a risk of damaging the plant. This expanding pot can solve that problem, because it can become bigger either by pressure from the plant's roots or human intervention, so repotting is not needed.

Note: We had many failed attempts to make this with different materials, so there may be some inconsistencies in the pictures because we forgot to document a step.

- A sheet of waterproof paper, or bags made of waterproof paper

- A piece of waterproof cardboard (like from a milk carton), significantly larger than the paper

- Duct tape

Cut the bag or bags into 8 equal squares of paper. You will use them to make 8 identical pieces and connect them into an expandable ninja star for the base.

The best way to do this is to fold a diagonal of some size at a 45 degree angle to the edge of the sheet, then fold horizontally and vertically across the edges of the triangle. One piece will turn out to be roughly the size of the base of the pot at its smallest size.

Flip the paper so that the waterproof side faces down. Valley fold along one diagonal and unfold.

Valley fold along the other diagonal and unfold.

Mountain fold along the vertical line passing through the center and fold back.

Fold the top left and top right corners into the center. Make sure the two corners folded in are touching and on opposite sides of the folded line going from one side to the other.

Push the bottom part upwards (see image).

Fold the paper in half and flatten.

Repeat this 7 more times, for a total of 8 pieces.

Take one piece and open the side with the two flaps. Stick another piece in the flaps. Be sure to have them fit together correctly (see the alignment in the third image).

Tuck the tips of each flap on the piece on the outside into the middle of the two flaps of the inside piece. It should look like it does in the image. If you can slide the two pieces without unfolding or ripping, you've done it correctly. In the first image, the lower piece can slide in the bottom-right direction.

Repeat for all the other pieces. Be careful when doing the last few pieces: the flap of the first piece should always be outside of other pieces, like it's "biting" them.

Cut a long segment of paper with length 3x the perimeter of the base at its smallest size. Fold the paper by repeating the following folds: mountain, mountain, valley. Try to have each segment of paper be as even as possible. It should look like it does in the image. It would be best if the number of bumps (see 2nd image) you have is divisible by 8, so measure out the folds accordingly. We made 16 bumps.

Fold the ends of the paper together so that it forms a circle and tape together. If it's too big, you can fold it in on itself and use paper clips or tape to secure it (see the top part of the image). Make sure that the "spikes" point inward and the flat parts point outward. It may help to paper clip a few of the "spikes" together because the taping part may be easier.

Lift up a corner of a paper piece of the base and put a piece of tape on it horizontally from the bottom. The sticky part should face up.

Fold the tape across the other side of the piece corner. In the picture, the sticky part faces away from the camera.

Fold the end of the piece that you lifted out back into the slit. The piece of tape should now face outwards from the center, with the sticky part up.

Tape the now-open strip of tape onto a flat (not spiked) part of the pot wall. Be sure not to tape it so that it inhibits the base's enlarging, and only tape a corner of a paper piece to one numbered segment. Tape every piece of the base to a segment on the pot walls, spaced evenly. If you have 16 segments, a good way to do this is to only tape the base to odd numbered segments.

You may have noticed that a hole opens up in the bottom when expanded. That is why we will cut a piece of paper to cover this.

First, take a circle of paper and fold it into eighths.

Cut little semicircles in the side.

Unfold and place in the center of the pot.

Pull on the spikes outwards. You may need to watch the video to figure out the right direction to pull the spikes in.

Once a decently sized hole opens up in the bottom, you can reach into it with your fingers from beneath and pull outwards (this method is faster).

Place fingers on opposite sides of the base, push in, rotate, and repeat.

Here are the measurements of pot diameter and height, as well as some photos