Bricking Up

I had almost decided to stain the driftwood a bit before sealing it, but I'm glad I didn't.  The polyurethane spray actually darkened the wood while it was sealing, which was perfect.

Next step is bricking up some of the gaps around where the driftwood ring sits on the bowl base.  Since we're using natural materials here, nothing completely fits together perfectly, just gotta get as close as possible and then fill in the holes as needed.  My gap filling material of choice?

BBQ wood chips.  These are alder wood chips, I believe.  They're what you're supposed to sprinkle on your BBQ to smoke your meat with, but they're the perfect size for filling holes.

Works like a charm.  I'm making sure to only put the wood glue on the tops of the chips though, because I'm not ready to permanently attach the ring to the top of the bowl yet.  I still want to go back on the inside and use wood putty to cement up holes on the inside, and thats a lot easier when you can take the concave ring off.

Definitely gonna have to stain those front chips...

And as you can see, our shallow bowl now has some depth to it, turning it into an acceptable container for a good sized pepper bonsai.  To help with the forest floor theme, I picked up some moss while I was out.

Unlike the moss I'm growing for ground cover on the soil, this is some pre-packaged dried out stuff thats probably been painted green on the tops, but thats okay.  I'll be using this stuff to decorate the sides of the container with, both to give it a more lively appearance, and to hide the spots where the glue is showing or the wood chips didn't come out entirely convincingly.

Thats a dirty little secret with us creative types.  Most of the time you see odd frilly bits on something, we're using them to cover our screw-ups.  But hey, long as it comes out looking good in the end, those are "unplanned design modifications", not screw ups. ;)