At the start of the pandemic, like most millennials, I reluctantly downloaded TikTok. It’s shameful to admit the amount of hours I’ve since spent on it, but I saw this beautiful planter clock being sold by Decor Deals. Of course, it’s always sold out and doesn’t quite fit our aesthetics … so I took it upon myself to make it my own. Here’s how if you’ve been eyeing some new décor like this too!

First step is deciding how large you’d like your clock to be. We ended up settling on 36″ wide for our clock. I placed many dots of painters tape on our wall in various sizes to determine the best fill of our space. You can custom cut this wood yourself but to save some time and energy we purchased a pre-cut table top circle from Lowes in 36″. They have multiple diameters to choose from and should have one that fits your space perfectly! It was about $40 when we purchased – but given the current prices of wood, this could change daily.

After we acquired our circle base, we needed to determine what size we wanted the numbers and planter buckets to be. The inspiration piece uses buckets at all of the number places and had stickers on the buckets for the hour markers. I prefer the look of just using planters at 12, 3, 6, and 9, so I needed numbers for the remainder of the spaces. Again I used painter tape to place out a couple of different sizes to see what I liked best. Ultimately, we ended on 4-inch black numbers that I ordered off of Etsy here.

Next, I needed to find the perfect buckets for their respective spaces as well as the internal clock workings. I ordered both of these items off of Amazon and you can find those linked here: Planters + Clock Parts. [I originally ordered these clock hands but they were too small for our sized clock, if you go smaller than 36″ I’d recommend these.]

After you have all of your parts – its time to assemble! I first stained my wood using Varathane Stain + Poly in color Espresso Satin. After it reached the color I wanted and fully dried, we attached the buckets using Everbilt #7 3/4inch wood screws and the holes already in the planters. The hardest part here was ensuring the buckets were even in their correct number positions as well as level across the board. We used a large yard sized level and lots of marking and measuring.

While placing the buckets on the board, we measured and marked the exact center, so we’d know where to put the clock inner workings. After all the bucket screws were in place, we drilled a hole in the center for the clock arm to go through. Our clock backing was too thick to lay flat against the wall so we had to router out a space in the back to allow the clock backing to rest inside of the board. After this was done, it’s as simple as adding a battery to your backing and inserting the hands into the front with the washers and bolts included in the kit!

The last two steps are adding your numbers and hanging it on the wall. For the numbers, I used liquid nails on the back of each number and took my time putting these in place. I wore a glove and added as little liquid nail as possible as it will squish out the sides if there is too much. [Liquid nail is awful to remove so make sure you’re sticking it exactly where you want it!] Apply pressure for about 30 seconds before letting it go. I did have some of the liquid nail squish out the sides, so I used a skewer to gentle scrape around the numbers and remove as much as possible. Again, I utilized the level, measurements and lots of time and patience to make sure they were all in their correct spaces.

Finally, we added two D hooks to the back of our board to hang it on the wall. Given the weight of the piece we also utilized 2 anchor bolts in the wall and then hung it up! [Tip: Add some folded tape or paper under where you’re drilling to catch the dust and debris that falls out for easy cleanup!]

It’s not quite the same as the inspiration one, but it fits our décor style perfectly and is uniquely ours! Stay tuned to see how we decorate the planter buckets for each season. I’m envisioning lemons, flowers, flags and more!