DIY Garden Mandala Art Made From Paper Plate Holders

Create fun and easy DIY garden ornaments for your yard! This garden mandala art is created using plastic paper plate holders, these are an inexpensive way to decorate outside!

It’s that time of year – time for garden art! Looking for a cute outdoor craft project? These DIY garden mandalas are bright, colorful, inexpensive and easy to make! This tutorial will show you how to create them.

These garden ornaments are made from plastic plate holders – the kind designed to hold a paper plate while outside. They come in all sorts of designs, and you can even find them in different colors. I found these clear ones sold in a pack of four at my local grocery store for just a few dollars. The same ones I used are sold on Amazon as well, so I’ve linked to them in the supplies section. 

How to Make DIY Garden Mandala Art

Supplies Needed:

• Plastic Paper Plate Holders
• Outdoor acrylic paint – I used DecoArt Patio Paint
• Sealer
• Wire
• Garden Stakes

Painting the Plates

For these garden ornaments, I used my favorite outdoor paint, DecoArt’s Patio Paint. I used it to paint stepping stones a couple years ago and they are still bright and colorful – even after leaving them out all winter.

It took a few coats of paint to get solid coverage. My first coat was fairly transparent, but after letting it dry, I added a second coat and started to get a more opaque color.

After adding a good base layer of color, start decorating the plates with dots, tiny brush strokes, flowers or anything you’d like! I made my dots using the hard end of my paintbrush. Mandalas are created by starting in the center of the circle and working your way out. Repeat the designs around the entire plate then continue to the next design which builds upon the last. Eventually your design will reach the edges of the plate!

Seal the Plates

Once the plate is painted, cover it with a layer of sealer. I used a basic sealer but you could also try Mod Podge Outdoor, but be mindful it has a very long cure time. 

I have had these outside for a couple weeks now and they have been rained on and so far are holding up really well! I’ll be sure to post an update mid-summer on how they are handling the sun and rain. (Update: Four years later and they still look great!) 

Attach the Plates to Stakes

Wire the plates to a stake. I found some plastic garden stakes in our garage and used wire to attach the plates in two places to the stakes.

This mandala project is complete and the garden art is ready for your yard! They look great on their own and are even more fun in a grouping.

Below you can see my little cluster of three! My hostas are just coming in, and since most of our garden is not in bloom quite yet, these add a lot of color among the green leaves.

I hope you enjoyed this super fun and simple DIY you can create for your garden! I have a few more outdoor crafts in the works I’m looking forward to sharing. You can also check out a few of my favorites from previous years, including this DIY Watering Can Garden Ornament and my DIY Butterflies made from tin foil and cardboard!

How are they holding up?

I like to give updates on how my garden art crafts hold up outside. I just set these outside for their fourth summer and they still look great. I ended up placing them under our roof line, south-facing, behind a section of our garden with lilies, sedum, catmint and salvia. I think the roof line has helped shield them from heavy rain though they still get wet and are exposed to the sun.

Overall they look great and have held up well. Much better than my Peppermints which were made the same way but kept outside through a mid-western winter. I also think painting the entire plate helped reduce chipping. I only painted sections of my peppermints and the paint chipped, whereas these don’t have any chipping.