7 Days of Thrift Shop Flips - Day Seven - Upcycled Vintage Radio

It's day seven!!! The final day of 7 Days of Thrift Shop Flips!

Today's project involves a vintage radio that was sent to me from my friend Amanda (who is also a reader) after I said I loved a planter made from an old radio, see it HERE.



Here is what became of this radio... don't worry, the radio no longer worked so instead of ending up in the trash, Amanda sent it to me for this project!


So, the first thing I needed to do was disassemble the radio and pull out the non-working guts.

Just removing a few little screws and a little snip-snip of wires...


... and the innards are now outtards!!! 😀


I tossed everything except the front plate, the knobs and dial, and the cord.


Now I needed to cut a hole in the top of the radio to hold my plants.

I used my multi-tool with the wood/plastic blade.



Once I had the area cut it was still held together with the pieces of plastic that had melted from the heat of the saw.

I just gave it a little tap with a hammer and it popped right out! I cut off any pegs that were in the way too.


I had some pieces of thin wood in my garage that I used to make a planter box to hold the plants.


I measured and cut the pieces in the sizes I needed to build a little box that would fit down into the radio.


Wood glue and a couple little nails and I had my box!


I painted the top portion of the box that will show when the box is in the radio.


I mixed up some Plaster of Paris to fill the box and set my plants into.


It is now apparent that I am using faux plants. I thought of using real plants but then you have the problems of trying to water them (I would need to line the box with plastic for that), then they grow and you have to re-pot them and find new plants for the radio planter... it is just easier to go faux!

I added my cactus and succulent plants, sticking them into the wet Plaster of Paris and then sprinkled in some more of those Dollar Store white rocks.


Here is the little box filled with cute plants!


While the plants were setting up, I glued the knobs back onto the radio and attached the front with glue.


I also added a short snippet of the plugin just for interest!


And here is my finished planter!